Wrexham Misses Out On Additional Arts Council Funding

Wrexham has missed out on further art funding for ‘Creative Wrexham’ following an unsuccessful application to Arts Council Wales.

The Wrexham partnership, which included the Oriel Wrecsam, This project, Glyndwr University and others was not successful in a recent bid for Stage 2 ‘Ideas People Places’ funding from the Arts Council of Wales. This is despite Wrexham making it through Stage 1 of the process earlier this year.

The ‘Ideas People Places’ grant is funded by Arts Council Wales and aims to ’embed the arts in a genuine and meaningful way in a small number of imaginative, ambitious and innovative regeneration projects’.

The Arts Council Wales website goes onto add about the project: “In doing so we wish to explore new ways of working that generate cross sector collaboration, test new ideas and partnerships and inspire communities to re-imagine their environment in a creative and empowered way.”

Stage 1 of the grant application took place earlier this year and saw 29 applications submitted. Wrexham was later short listed in the final 12 for its ‘Creative Wrexham’ proposal.

Other projects that were short listed include ‘Re-imagine Corwen’ (Corwen), ‘The Arts and Mind Project’ (Blaenau Gwent) and The Caernarfon Waterfront (Caernarfon).

The total amount awarded to the 12 projects on the shortlist was £249,177.

However Wrexham was unsuccessful in its bid, which could have seen the town granted between £100,000 and up to a £1 million over the three years to 2016.

Wrexham.com queried with the Council if missing out on the money would impact any plans for the Peoples Market to become a cultural hub (viewable here).

Steffan Jones-Hughes, Arts Manager Oriel Wrecsam said: “Whilst being a disappointment it was clear from the outset of this process that there would be strong competition for a very limited amount of funding.

“The project was not directly linked to our feasibility study for the Peoples Market, although it would clearly have helped us to enhance the concept of Creative Wrexham.

“The feasibility study, being undertaken by Ash Sakula Architects, is due to be completed by December, when it will be presented to members.

“Arts Council of Wales have invited us to continue to be involved in training and networking opportunities linked to Ideas People Places and we hope to develop some strands of our project through other funding streams.”