Government Culture Funding Bypasses Torbay – and most of the South West

A lack of funding by the Culture, Media and Sport Department for the ‘Night Less Ordinary’ scheme, which was to provide free theatre tickets to young people, has prevented theatres in and around Torbay from participating.

The nearest theatre offering the scheme is the Northcott in Exeter.

The Government initially announced £6million for the Quality and Innovation Fund to provide free tickets but this was cancelled and the budget for the Arts Council, which is administering the scheme, is only £2.5million. To compound matters, the Government has found it will only be able to offer 618,000 rather than the proposed 1 million tickets for the £2.5million.

As a result many theatres will be unable to offer the scheme and whole areas of the country will miss out. Only 2 venues in Devon and 5 in Cornwall have signed up.

Adrian said: “Yet again the Government has reneged on a funding pledge. Here it has re-announced a scheme but with less than half the original funding. Yet again it is areas such as the South West that miss out. Young people in Torbay face a journey to Exeter or Plymouth to take advantage of this. On public transport this may well be costly and impractical.”