Call for £40m arts funding boost

A quarter of UK adults visit galleries like the Baltic in Gateshead

The Arts Council England has called for at least £40m of public money to invest in visual arts.

It argues the current level of arts activity is "unsustainable" without further investment in the sector, which it says has "never been so popular".

Large parts of the country have little access to contemporary art, it adds.

The publicly-funded body has published Turning Point, a 10-year strategy to give priority to painting, sculpture and other visual arts.

An Arts Council spokesman said £40m was the lowest amount required to make these plans a reality.

The announcement follows a major Arts Council report on the visual arts scene, said to be the first of its kind.

'Success story'

The strategy, it said, calls for "greater links between contemporary art and the art of the past".

The Arts Council is currently developing a national online database of contemporary art in the UK's public collections.

The scheme has been welcomed by Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota, who described the visual arts as "one of Britain's great success stories".

"We welcome the fact that the Arts Council has decided to prioritise them in this way," he said.

Arts Council England is the national development agency for the arts in England, distributing public money from the government and the National Lottery.