Preston has suffered a 50% decrease in Arts Council funding between 2008 and 2010.

The figures, taken from data.gov.uk, show the amount of grants awarded between 2008/2009 and 2009/2010. The awards are then broken down into regional figures and then further into individual local authorities.

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Preston received £386,221 during 2008/2009 but only £180,510 during 2009/2010. I’ve uploaded the data sets for the Northwest into more easily readable Google Documents and have highlighted grants that have been awarded in Preston.

You can take a look at them by clicking on the links at the bottom of the page. In addition, I thought that a visual representation for the whole of Lancashire would help illustrate the figures in a more appealing way than just a load of stastistics, so I’ve created some visualisations below. Click on each of the bubble charts and you can view the amount of funding awarded to each local authority in Lancashire. 

Apart from showing the decrease in funding for Preston it also shows the huge amount that Manchester and Liverpool recieve in comparison to other local authorities. With the city gearing up for Guild, is this part of a cost cutting measure so the Preston arts scene is in full bloom by 2012? 

We tried to contact both Lancashire County Council and Preston City Council several times but they failed to get back to us.

Data set for 2008/2009 funding

Data set for 2009/2010 funding

Did you apply for a grant in the years listed above? What’s the application process like? Were you successful or were you rejected, and if so, why? We’d love to hear from anyone who’s had hands on experience with Arts Council funding.