• IN November Arts Council England announced details of its new national portfolio of funded organisations for 2023-26.

The outcome for this funding round is that Camden has 32 organisations in the national portfolio, together they bring investment to the local economy of over £10million a year, providing programmes for our residents, young people and communities to engage in.

These include existing organisations such as The Roundhouse Trust, Camden People’s Theatre and The Place and new organisations such as Black Lives in Music, Jacaranda Books, The Jewish Museum and The Foundling Museum.

We offer our congratulations to those organisations in the national portfolio and look forward to supporting them to engage our communities in their programmes.

However we have also seen some significant losses in Camden.

Some of our long-standing NPOs, national portfolio organisations, which include the Donmar Warehouse, The Gate Theatre, and Hampstead Theatre have had their entire funding withdrawn, while Camden Arts Centre and English Folk Dance and Song Society received a cut of approximately 30 per cent.

We are disappointed as these reductions and losses in funding will impact their programmes; a consequence of this will be a reduced programme of high-quality cultural experiences for our residents, young people and communities to engage with.

The council has met a number of organisations impacted by the cuts and are currently exploring all the ways we can support them to deliver programmes which benefit Camden residents.

Cllr SABRINA FRANCIS
Cabinet Member for Young People and Culture
Cllr JONATHAN SIMPSON MBE
Chair of Cultural Camden