Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to support amateur theatre in (a) Fylde constituency and (b) Lancashire.

The government supports the arts predominantly through Arts Council England (ACE). Through their main funding programme, the 2023-2027 National Portfolio Investment Programme, ACE is providing over £100 million in grants per year to around 195 theatres across the country. Across all their funding programmes, including lottery schemes, for the financial year 2024-25, ACE awarded around £300 million to theatres/theatre based organisations.

While the Arts Council does not have a funding classification for ‘amateur’ theatre specifically, in 2024 they supported the Spot On Festival in Poulton-le-Fylde with over £50k of funding. Spot On works to bring professional performing arts to village halls, libraries, pubs and open spaces across Lancashire. As a combined arts festival, they worked with 30 professional performing arts shows and 8 local groups and provided a number of outreach activities as part of the festival, including drama workshops. Details of all Arts Council Funding in Fylde and Lancashire can be found on their website here: https://culture.localinsight.org/#/map

Amateur Theatre groups across Lancashire and Fylde are able to apply to Arts Council England’s open funding programme, National Lottery Project Grants, which provides over £100 million of support annually to individuals and organisations.