Welsh arts lose £3.5m to Olympics

The annual storytelling festival at St Donat's is under threat

A third of the money usually given to the Arts Council in Wales (ACW) from lottery funding is being lost to the 2012 Olympics in London.

Publishing its budget for 2008-9, the council said it expected to be short of at least £3.5m in three years time.

It is also cutting £250,000 worth of non-lottery funding to four arts groups as a result of pressures on the budget.

However there will be a £125,000 investment for a Heads of the Valleys' community arts initiative.

ACW chief executive Peter Tyndall said: "We have got very difficult decisions to make and this is having an impact on our revenue-funded clients, but it's individual artists, community arts projects, all this kind of thing, projects in schools which will suffer."

One of the organisations affected by the immediate budget cuts is St Donat's Arts Centre near Llantwit Major in the Vale of Glamorgan.

Celf O Gwmpas is one of the four organisations losing funding

It will lose its £45,000 annual grant - a fifth of its annual income - which the centre says could lead to it closing with the loss of three full-time and 12 part-time jobs, as well as ending its annual International Storytelling Festival.

The grant will be withdrawn after six months, but the centre intends to appeal within the 28-day time limit.

General manager Janet Smith said: "It does jeopardise the future of the arts centre and the storytelling festival."

Ms Smith said the centre put on 356 events annually which attracted 59,000 attendances.

Workshops

She said the council had told them it had made its decision based on its strategic objectives and priorities, and because St Donat's was not based in an area of acknowledged deprivation.

"One of their strategic priorities is arts and young people - we have an arts festival which is aimed at sixth-form and college students, we run training sessions for teachers to help them interpret Shakespeare with students.

"We've worked with 3,995 children and young people in areas of Wales which are designated Communities First.

"We are based at an international school - we deliberately choose events in our programme to contribute to the curriculum of the students at Atlantic College."

She added: "We have a very robust case to say we are absolutely fulfilling every strategic priority."

Another loser is Celf O Gwmpas in Llandrindod Wells, which runs workshops for children with learning disabilities, which employs five part-time people and up to 20 freelance artists.

They hope to either save their £32,000 grant or find alternative sources of funding.