The ‘money pit’ South Holland Centre is in a much better place after last year’s cuts, it’s been claimed, amid an increase in usage in recent months.
The recommendations put forward by a task group set up to look at the district’s main arts venue were passed by South Holland District Council’s Executive on Tuesday.
The meeting heard that cost cutting made last year had reduced the annual losses from £250,000 to £116,000, something Coun Peter Coupland described as “nearly acceptable”.
The reduction of 13 staff down to five caused concern from many in the arts community about how the venue would operate, but more shows have been put on in recent months.
Coun Gary Porter described the centre as a “bit of a money pit” and said the authority needed to make it “more commercial”.
“The costs have come down and down which is good as I don’t think it would be anywhere near as sustainable,” he said. “It was obviously unfortunate for the centre that COVID happened, but also fortunate because it gave us chance for a full stop on what has gone before so there was a new, fresher start.
“We’ve got a new team in place and new senior officers and the possibility of a partnership approach that could give us access to people with far greater experience than we’ve ever been able to muster in South Holland on our own.
“In a post-COVID world that building’s probably got a brighter future now than it did before, but we need to ensure these recommendations are carried out.”
Coun Gary Taylor told the meeting there had been increasing use of the function hall and more customers coming through the door.
“We know that had to take place as the previous model was no longer sustainable and losing a million pounds every four years,” he said. “That couldn’t continue.
“We made the decision to change the structure and make changes.
“We should also highlight how hard the staff are working as a team in this challenging environment.
“We do need to be realistic and get some new customers in but with the situation with the economy we’re in a far better position than we were a year ago.
“What we need is a partnership approach as we look to move forward and increase the audience share of this venue.”
Coun Bryan Alcock, who led the task force, said: “I don’t think the governance was good enough.
“We ought to have been more enquiring.
“I think as an authority we could probably have noticed we were off track a bit earlier than we did.
“Things like promotion, it was stating the obvious we needed to be better at it, but it’s a work in progress.
“Everybody we talked to was enthusiastic and wanted it to be a success.
“We realise the facility may not avoid some public purse support but the authority aims to minimise that and that should continue to be the aim.”
One of the recommendations is to look at getting Arts Council funding.
However Coun Nick Worth said: “It can be a bit of a double edged sword. I know from past experience it’s good to have the money but they are quite restrictive and there can be some challenging shows they want to put on that doesn’t always pull in large numbers of people.”
