Senior jobs have been sacrificed to make Gateshead’s Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art less top heavy, as David Whetstone reports.

Mr Lovett was appointed as director of finance and resources at the Gateshead art complex in 2003, effectively as number two to founding director Sune Nordgren.

The £55,000-a-year post had been upgraded at the insistence of Arts Council England after a consultants’ report had raised concerns about financial procedures at Baltic during the hectic months following its opening in 2002.

Mr Lovett, from Northallerton, had previously been general manager of Steam, the Great Western Railway Museum in Swindon, Wiltshire.

At Baltic he found himself holding the reins as a succession of directors – Stephen Snoddy following Sune Nordgren and then being followed by Peter Doroshenko – came and went.

Having opted to take voluntary redundancy at Baltic he will take up a new post, as director and chief executive of the Black Country Living Museum at Dudley in the West Midlands, in August.

He said: “It has been a real privilege to support Baltic through its infancy – and even its growing pains - and I am very content, even cheerful, as should everyone be with an interest in the organisation, that we have now reached a time when Baltic can thrive without me cluttering up the place.”

Baltic chairman Sir Ian Wrigglesworth said the board was hugely indebted to Mr Lovett for all that he has done for Baltic and the legacy he leaves. “He has been an outstanding servant of Baltic and has been unwavering in establishing a solid foundation for future financial stability.”