Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy unveils a £270m fund to save England’s cultural institutions from decay

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has launched a £270m Arts Everywhere Fund to salvage England’s deteriorating cultural infrastructure, warning that years of neglect have erased arts from both communities and curriculums. The fund, aimed at stabilising struggling institutions, comes amid growing concerns that theatres, museums, and galleries are at risk of closure due to financial strain.

“For too many young people in this country, culture hasn’t just been erased from the curriculum—it’s been erased from our communities as well,” Nandy declared.

Of the £270m package, £120m is earmarked for 17 major institutions, including the British Museum, National Gallery, and National Museums Liverpool, which already receive direct DCMS funding. Additionally, these institutions will see a 5% boost in their annual grants—though this increase will not extend to those funded by Arts Council England. The rest of the fund will be allocated to struggling regional attractions, with a focus on long-term financial resilience and essential infrastructure upgrades.

The cost of maintaining cultural institutions is steep. Bolton’s Octagon Theatre recently underwent £10m worth of renovations, while buildings plagued by crumbling reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac) face similar repair costs. Many institutions have turned to philanthropic donations, but Nandy stressed the need for government intervention to ensure funding is distributed beyond London’s elite cultural centres.

“Small amounts of government money can unlock much larger sums,” she noted, arguing that regional institutions deserve as much support as their London counterparts.

The announcement coincided with the 60th anniversary of Jennie Lee’s groundbreaking white paper on the arts. As the UK’s first arts minister in 1964, Lee tripled Arts Council grants and heavily invested in regional institutions—a legacy Nandy hopes to revive.

Despite her personal connection to the arts—her father served on the National Theatre board, and her sister worked at Manchester’s Royal Exchange—Nandy emphasised that many children today feel alienated from cultural institutions. “Too many kids growing up today just don’t have that feeling of belonging,” she said. “One of the things I’m asking the arts world to do is to truly open their doors to communities.”

The government has already taken steps in this direction. Earlier this week, it confirmed a £10m investment in British Library North, which will transform the derelict Temple Works building in Leeds into a new cultural hub. An additional £5m has been allocated to establish a National Poetry Centre in Leeds, part of a broader £47m cultural investment package.

While Nandy’s initiative has been met with cautious optimism, some critics question whether the funding will be enough to reverse years of austerity-driven neglect. The challenge now is whether this injection of cash can truly revive the UK’s floundering arts sector—or if it’s merely a sticking plaster on a crumbling foundation