Ten Sunderland community venues to share £30,000 extra funding from Cultural Spring

A project helping community venues in Sunderland become more sustainable has been awarded extra funding and launched a new phase.

Over the last year The Cultural Spring has worked with 10 venues through its Space to Create programme, to help them work with communities, focusing on identifying and then programming creative activities.

Phase 1 of the project helped the venues organise taster sessions, providing financial support as well as help with marketing and training.

Each of the 10 venues will receive a further £3,000 of funding each as well as the support of The Cultural Spring team. The venues, which each previously also received £1,500, are:

Sunderland Training and Education Farm (STEF), Washington Millennium Centre, The Box Youth and Community Project, Grindon Church Community Project, Washington Mind, the Old Rectory, Downhill Centre Community Opportunities, Young Asian Voices, Grace House North East, Easington Lane Community Access Point (ELCAP).

Space to Create is part-funded by the Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund; a central pillar of the UK government’s Levelling Up agenda providing £2.6 billion of funding for local investment by March 2025.

The Fund aims to improve pride in place and increase life chances across the UK investing in communities and place, supporting local business, people and skills.

Emma Biggins, community engagement co-ordinator for The Cultural Spring, said: “We and our venues were really pleased with Phase 1 of Space to Create.

“The project has had a genuine impact on venues, some of which have seen increased footfall, improved engagement with centre users, an increased sense of pride in their area and more volunteers signing up to help out.

“Phase 1 involved activities like dance groups, exhibitions, performances, developing fundraising and marketing skills and creative workshops.

“Now we’ve started on Phase 2 which will be more about capacity building, I and other members of The Cultural Spring team will be working with the venues to develop learning from Phase 1.

“So we’ll be talking to them about areas such as working with artists, project delivery, marketing and communications and training volunteers.

Karen Quigley, centre manager at Washington Millennium Centre, said: “Working with The Cultural Spring has been a brilliant experience for our centre users and employees alike.

“We have all thoroughly enjoyed working with a real life professional artist, learning new skills and developing an art piece.