Birmingham City Council announce “alarming” budget cuts

Birmingham City Council has announced major cuts to its culture budget over the next two years as it struggles with a £300million shortfall.

• READ MORE: 2023 was “worst year for venue closures” while “no one in music industry seems to care”, say MVT

The council declared itself bankrupt last year and now a series of measures have been introduced to save money, including job losses, the dimming of street lights and changing waste collections from weekly to fortnightly (via BBC).

The cuts will also hit the city’s cultural life, with music venues expected to be impacted. Among the announced casualties are funding for the Birmingham International Dance Festival, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the IKON Gallery.

Lyle Bignon, who represents the Night Time Industries Association for Birmingham, has said: “The proposed cuts to council culture budgets confirm what many of us working in arts, culture, entertainment, music and NTE in Birmingham have known for some time.

“Our city’s council, regional authorities, and key agencies have simply not placed enough value on culture over the years, despite its proven social and economic benefits.”

“[These] announcements sound a major alarm for Birmingham’s creative community as well as cultural professionals and audiences across the UK,” Bignon added.

The news comes at a time when the national infrastructure around live music is at a crisis point. Last month, a report was published by the Music Venues Trust (MVT) outlining the “disaster” that struck the UK’s grassroots music venues in 2023, with calls increasing for a ticket levy on larger arenas and investment from the wider industry.

Last year saw the MVT deliver their first annual report at the Houses Of Parliament – warning grassroots gig spaces in the UK were “going over a cliff” without urgent government action and investment from new large arenas. After the stark warning that the UK was set to lose 10 per cent of its grassroots music venues in 2023, the MVT and others from the sector ended the year by telling NME how 2023 was the “worst year for venue closures” while “no one in music industry seems to care”.

Among the MVT’s key findings into their “most challenging year”, it has been reported that last year saw 125 UK venues abandon live music and that over half of them had shut entirely – including the legendary Moles in Bath. Some of the more pressing constraints were reported as soaring energy prices, landlords increasing rate amounts, supply costs, business rates, licensing issues, noise complaints and the continuing shockwaves of COVID-19.

Introducing the report at the House of Commons, MVT COO Beverley Whitrick said: “These venues are so important – partly because they are in these communities across the nations in large cities, small cities, towns and sometimes rural locations as well.

“23.6million people visited a grassroots music venue in the UK in 2023, which is an increase on the previous year. Sometimes people say to us when they ask about closures, ‘Is it that people are not interested in going anymore?’ Of course, that’s not the case at all.

“The wish to see artists, to connect with them in small spaces in local venues is as high as it’s ever been.”

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