Community art projects receive £1.8m boost

Arts Council investment means Sedgemoor can now fund more arts activities like these stilts performers at Journey Exchange

Communities living in Sedgemoor are set to benefit from £1.8m of new Arts Council funding.

It is one of the areas the Arts Council has identified as having especially low involvement in arts and culture.

The money will go to Seed, a project set up by the Arts Council to reach people who do not take part in creative activities.

It should enable the group to create an arts festival across the summer of 2023 and reach more people.

Tongues of Fire is one of the arts events organised by Seed in Sedgemoor

Seed is a consortium of local organisations led by Homes in Sedgemoor, which includes local authorities and Bridgwater Senior Citizens Forum, Somerset Film and Young Somerset.

Summer festival

It's director Scott O'Hara said: "We're very excited. This means we now have funding to get us to the half way point of our 10-year plan to work with every area of Sedgemoor.

"Everybody has creativity in them. It's all about providing opportunities. We are now going to work with the community to create a summer festival of music, theatre, dance and visual arts in summer 2023."

Sedgemoor, North Somerset is a high priority investment area in the Government's levelling up programme. Announcing the funding, the Arts Council said the rural nature of the area, and the limited cultural infrastructure were key factors in why so few people got involved with the arts.

Claire Tough, the chair of Seed, described the funding as "a real vote of confidence" and "a wonderful opportunity to grow and progress our work into new areas of Sedgemoor".

She said they could now plan for more events, including an arts festival in the summer of 2023, and focus more attention on working with people in North Petherton, Cannington and Quantock Hills

Sedgemoor shares the £1.8m funding with the New Forest. The investment is part of £38.3m given to Arts Council Creative People and Places projects like Seed across England.