Coronavirus: £15.75m arts and heritage fund confirmed

Theatres and music venues have not yet been given a date to reopen to audiences

Details of how almost £16m of funding for arts and heritage venues and organisations is to be spent will be outlined this week.

The money is part of £29m previously agreed by the executive to support culture, arts and heritage.

Many theatres, music venues, museums and other heritage sites are closed or running at limited capacity since mid-March due to the pandemic.

Theatres and music venues have not yet been given a date to reopen.

However, some have said they will not be able to open again until 2021.

That has led to warnings that some are facing financial ruin and job losses.

Communities Minister Carál Ní Chuilín recently allocated about £3m of the executive funding to individual artists whose work had been affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

She has now said a further £15.75m will be spent on support to arts, heritage and language organisations.

The minister said details of how the money would be distributed would be announced on Wednesday (28 October).

However, £7.75m will go towards a "Stability and Renewal Programme" for arts venues and organisations.

A further £5.5m is being spent on a recovery fund for heritage venues, while £2.5m will be shared among the Irish language, Ulster-Scots and Sign Language sectors.

Communities Minister Carál Ní Chuilín says a further £15.75m is to be spent on support to arts, heritage and language organisations

Ms Ní Chuilín said those budgets were indicative and could be flexible.

She also said details of how the remaining £10m of the cultural support will be spent would be outlined soon.

"I will shortly announce how the remaining £10m of the £29m budget will be distributed," she said.

"This will include further funding for Arts Council to continue to support individuals and an allocation for local councils to ensure that the culture and heritage assets they own and operate are supported."

Emergency funding support for arts, heritage and culture had been received by the executive in July from Westminster.

It was part of a wider £1.57bn cultural recovery fund from the UK government.

Around 1,300 venues and organisations in England recently received up to £1m each in funding from that fund.