Don't starve the regions of culture. It sustains society

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/18/nicholas-hytner-cuts-regional-theatres

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At a conference last Thursday at the National Theatre, the leaders of 22 English regional theatres described the transformational effect that a thriving performing arts centre has had on their various cities and towns. We were delighted to welcome Danny Boyle, fresh from his Olympic triumph, to put the case for sustained modest investment in a national theatre network. As he said, theatres "create communities… what they provide is something else to believe in; something in our cities and towns that isn't Wetherspoon and Walkabout pubs and Mario Balotelli and John Terry".

They are, in other words, a cornerstone of what somebody once called the "big society" and an agent of social and economic regeneration of once bleak town centres. Many local authorities understand this. David Martin, of Oldham Coliseum, told us how his council has invested in the refurbishment of the theatre, recognising its value in changing public perceptions of the town and creating a constructive night-time economy. Gemma Bodinetz recounted how Liverpool council had funded lighting for a football ground, following a community project led by the Playhouse's technical team. Meanwhile, Erica Whyman, of Northern Stage, reported that studies by Newcastle's principal cultural venues estimate that for every pound invested in their buildings, £4 is returned into the local economy. These dramatic transformations are not confined to the regions.

Londoners will remember the wasteland of the South Bank 20 or 30 years ago, when a visit to the Southbank Centre or the National Theatre involved a lonely trek across what felt like a bomb site. The expansion of what is now the world's largest and most successful cultural centre has created ripples throughout the surrounding area.

It is therefore bewildering that so many of these theatres now find themselves in peril, as they face cuts not just from the Arts Council but from their local authorities, their hands reluctantly forced by ferocious reductions in what they receive from central government, which fall far more heavily on councils such as Sheffield (where the government grant has reduced by £137 per resident over the last two years) than Richmond-upon-Thames (where it's reduced by £28 per resident).

None of us can understand why the government would want to do further damage to a productive corner of the economy for the sake of tiny savings that would be vastly outweighed by the resultant losses. Philanthropy is being offered as a cure-all; Maria Miller, the culture secretary, has suggested that it might double over the coming years.

I can speak with some authority as the director of a theatre that has doubled its charitable income over the past six years. We have been able to do this because we are a) in London and b) properly funded in the first place. ighty per cent of philanthropic giving to the arts benefits London, and almost invariably private funding follows public funding. To pretend otherwise is to betray not only the theatres that have so risen so magnificently to the challenges of the last few years, but also the communities they serve.