The funding package, led by Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy and the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS), provides a sizeable investment in arts, culture, museums, libraries, and heritage buildings across England between 2025 and 2030. The funding can be used to support urgent building repairs, improve accessibility, and to maintain free or low-cost cultural spaces, ensuring that communities can access culture despite the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.
A priority for this investment is to restore national pride into community assets and to build on the existing 'Plan for Change', increasing access to opportunities to engage with and participate in art, local history. Some key elements of the funding package include: £27.5 million for upgrading public libraries, £425 million through the Creative Foundations Fund for arts venues, and £230 million for heritage protection and restoration. Additionally, more than £100 million is earmarked specifically for struggling local museums, supporting up to 200 sites with maintenance backlogs and bills.
This comes at a time when arts venues face increasing maintenance challenges, ageing infrastructure and, growing financial pressures, according to a report published last year. Where this is the case, venues face an inability to provide safe and comfortable spaces for guests, and alarmingly, closure.
In December, the BBC reported that more than half of small music venues in the UK (53%) made no profit in 2025, while 30 live music venues were forced to close. Despite rising attendance at grassroots events, around 6,000 jobs were lost across the sector. Against this backdrop, the funding announced by Lisa Nandy is expected to provide greater job protection and financial stability for the estimated 700,000 people employed in the cultural industries.
With the sector still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and facing ongoing cost-of-living pressures, the announcement represents a long-awaited investment in arts and culture across England.
However, concerns remain about how effectively the funding will be distributed. Questions have been raised over whether the investment will reach communities beyond London and the South East, particularly in regions that have historically received less cultural funding - such as the North East. At present, no detailed information has been published.
Despite these reservations, the package has been welcomed by those in the sector. Darren Henley, Chief Executive of Arts Council England, said: “By continuing to fund our cultural infrastructure, the government is investing in our collective future in ensuring creative opportunities for generations to come.”
Ultimately, this funding package delivers a significant and much-needed intervention in the arts and cultural sector, but only if delivered effectively and equitably. Early indicators suggest that this funding could secure the futures of a number of organisations and venues, so long as it is delivered to the regions and communities which need it most.