Funding row threatens future of Frome Festival

THE future of Frome Festival has been left in doubt due to the end of an ongoing funding agreement with the town council and a change in the council’s funding policy.

The festival’s director, Martin Dimery, says that whilst this year’s festival – which will mark its 20th anniversary – will go ahead as planned, the 2021 festival could be its last due to the town council’s changes and the uncertainty surrounding its commercial sponsors.

Previously, the festival has relied on funding from the council via a ‘multi-year agreement’, which guaranteed funding over three years amounting to a total of £30,000. This agreement came to an end in the 2019/20 financial year, and following a change in policy by the council, ‘multi-year agreements’ are no longer available.

Instead, the Frome Festival and other larger projects, must now apply to the council for funding each year from its ‘substantial project fund’ – a process that the festival says is ‘unsustainable’ as the uncertainty restricts it from applying to other grant-giving organisations. The change in policy also caps the annual grant at £8,000 – however, at a town council meeting earlier this month, councillors agreed to award the festival £6,000 – £2,000 less than what was applied for – from its substantial project fund for 2020/21.

Speaking to Frome Times, festival director Martin Dimery said, “The planning for the future of the festival has been curtailed by this new policy. The big problem is not just the loss of cash, it’s the loss of the three year rolling programme where they guaranteed funding for organisations like us for three years – it has been stripped away.

“The loss of the three year programme means that not only must we do more work online to fill in an application every year and make justifications for something that the council has funded for 20 years; but we could also lose the interest of outside bodies who might otherwise come in and help us out – it leaves us with no long-term strategy.

“So on one hand the council are saying ‘you need a long term strategy’ and on the other, they are pulling the rug out from under us and stopping us from getting that.

“Some of the big grants that are available, from the likes of the National Lottery and the Arts Council – for these grants there’s an 18-month build-up, so if I was to apply for those grants now, it wouldn’t be for this year, it would be for 2021 – so I have no guarantee of funding from any other source. And these larger organisations won’t fund you if your local councils don’t.

“It’s a double-edged sword and it is really negative – it’s a radical change in policy that threatens all the organisations that they support – not just us.

“It’s up to them what they do with their money, but when their policies affect the viability and sustainability of organisations in the town, then that has to be brought to the attention of the public.

“This year’s festival will carry on as normal. We will have to subsidise some events – we applied for a additional town council grant of £2,000 to fund an exhibition for this year’s festival,  which was turned down – so we will have to find the money for that from other means.

“For the 2021 festival – it will depend on our circumstances after this year’s festival. Financially we could make a loss, which we have done from time to time. And our sponsorship could drop next year – which is a threat as we have been told by commercial sponsors they might not be able to afford the same amount of money next year because of Brexit. Add to that a threat to some of our ‘grace and favour’ sponsorships with local premises and businesses – we could be in a position that next year is the last festival that we do. And we were going to apply to the town council this year for more money to litigate that.

“It is not unfair to say that we will face an existential crisis at some point in the future, and this has brought it closer.”

A spokesperson for the town council added, “Frome Town Council received grant applications in this round totalling £112,756 and, with a budget of £56,400 available, had to make some difficult decisions at its meeting on Wednesday 12th February. 

“It was agreed to award 18 organisations a total of £56,400. All of the proposed grants were less than the amount applied for, as councillors wanted to support as many organisations as possible.”

In response to Martin Dimery’s concerns, town councillor Rich Ackroyd said, “Frome Town Council supports local organisations to the tune of £140,000 a year, much more than any other local town council, because we believe they do so much to enrich our community. 

“Having to choose between so many good applications is always difficult and we can’t please all the people all the time. Martin was very aware that the previous three year grant agreement – where Frome Town Council provided grants totalling of £30,000 – was coming to an end and there was no certainty that this amount would be awarded in the current or future years. I can understand Martin’s concerns and we are talking with Martin to see how we can help further.”