Cultural Recovery Plan 2021 to 2022
Towards Cultural Recovery
During the pandemic, we supported Southwark’s cultural sector with grants, discounted fees and the waiving of delivery targets. This included:
- Delivering £1,136,263 of business support grants from national government to 182 Recreation and Culture sector businesses.
- Maintaining payment in full of our year-round Culture Grants (totalling £152,000) to the 2020-21 funded organisations and of our annual management fee to the management organisation for Canada Water Theatre (totalling £160,000). Delivery targets were also waived (and reduced for 21-22).
- Reducing fees by 20% for event organisers who delivered events in autumn 2020 in recognition of their own reduced ticket income due to restrictions on audience capacity.
- Accepting reduced fee income equivalent to £67,817 from filming activity in the borough from March 2020 - September 2021 to support the film industry through the challenges and increased costs of operating during the pandemic in line with government guidelines.
- Commissioning 19 days of outdoor roaming performances in December 2020 to encourage shoppers to the borough’s high streets in the run-up to Christmas as part of the Shop Local campaign
- Awarding £60,500 in Cultural Celebrations Fund grants to support the delivery of free community events during 2021 – 22 and commissioning a carnival-style Bermondsey Bitesize event in August 2021.
- Commissioning The Revels Office to consult with the borough’s cultural sector in May - June 2021 to understand the needs and challenges post-pandemic.
In addition to council support, the borough’s cultural sector has benefited from:
- £23 million in grant funding from the government’s Culture Recovery Fund for over 80 Southwark-based cultural and heritage organisations, with a further £8 million loaned via repayable finance agreements.
- Grant funding from the London Community Response fund: 870 organisations from Southwark’s Voluntary and Community Sector received a combined total of £3.1million between March 2020 - February 2021.
Page last updated: 12 January 2024
