Cancel the Festival of Britain - Save Britain's Grassroots Culture

Cancel the Festival of Britain - Save Britain's Grassroots Culture

Started
17 March 2020
Signatures: 14,244Next Goal: 15,000
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Why this petition matters

Started by Music Venue Trust

Cancel the Festival of Britain 2022. Save Britain’s Grassroots Culture

We are calling on Boris Johnson to take immediate action to protect Britain's Grassroots Music Venues.  We need the Prime Minister to:

  1. Immediately announce legal measures to temporarily close the UK's Grassroots Music Venues in response to the Coronavirus outbreak
  2. Cancel the Festival of Britain 2022 - a one-off cultural event that the government has ring-fenced £120 million to deliver
  3. Reallocate the £120 million to create a Cultural Infrastructure Hardship Relief Fund, delivering funding to grassroots music venues, theatres, arts centres and other social and cultural spaces forced to close by the Coronavirus

Read our Open Letter to Boris Johnson at the Music Venue Trust website HERE

The government has committed £120 million to delivering an event that no one in the public has demanded, and many sectors of the public simply do not want. It has little backing in the cultural and creative industries and is neither urgent nor necessary. The entire Grassroots Music Venue sector can be mothballed for eight weeks and saved permanently for just one third of the money the government has already allocated to this single event. With the remaining £80 million the government could create a Cultural Sector Hardship Relief Fund. That fund could take action to support our grassroots music venues, theatres, arts centres, community pubs, all the spaces that are vital hubs of culture and social interaction in our communities.   

Music Venue Trust has provided government with all the information they need to take action. We have laid out the challenges, proposed the solutions, and tried to work with government on positive action to manage an immediate public health crisis with long term, structured, achievable solutions. We remain committed to doing that and want you to work with us. But this solution is simple, adds nothing to the demands on the public purse and will work:

Cancel the Festival of Britain 2022. Save Britain’s Grassroots Culture.     

  

 

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Signatures: 14,244Next Goal: 15,000
Support now
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