‘WE ARE BEING TRANSPARENT’

REACTING to the letter, a spokesperson for Newcastle city council said yesterday: “Newcastle is one of the very few councils that is setting out three years of its budget rather than year-by-year and is therefore being much more transparent about the implications of the government’s austerity measures.

“We face unpalatable decisions which we know are counterproductive and in many cases false economy but the council can only spend the resources that it has.

“Although the total amount the city council contributes to the arts sector is significant, it is much smaller to individual bodies – between 2.5% and 15% of the amount that they receive – and we would therefore not expect that our reductions alone would result in the closure of any arts organisations.”

The council is in talks with cultural venues to find alternative sources of funding, the spokesperson said.