Issue - meetings

Watts Gallery Trust has requested funding of up to £100,000 pa for four years to match funding awarded to them under the Arts Council’s investment programme.

G.F. Watts was a leading Victorian artist with major connections and associations with Surrey. Watts Gallery – Artists’ Village (now owned by the Watts Gallery Trust) is a unique arts and crafts centre in the Surrey Hills and an important cultural and tourism asset of international standing for the county.

The Leader and Chief Executive have previously discussed with the Watts Gallery provision of strategic support to assist the development of the Artists’ Village to enhance its profile as a leading heritage, arts and educational centre in Surrey and increasingly nationally.

Watts Gallery Trust has recently been awarded £100,000 pa for four years under the Arts Council’s programme for support for National Portfolio Organisations and has approached the County Council with a request for time-limited revenue funding to match this grant. A programme of Heritage Lottery Fund support ends March 2018 and County Council match funding will enable the Trust to sustain and continue to develop its Art for All learning programme with schools and community and its programmes of work targeted to health and wellbeing outcomes.  

The benefits for Surrey residents will include increased learning opportunities and enhanced wellbeing including for vulnerable young people and other marginalised groups, increased employment and business opportunities, strengthened cultural experience for the public, including local people who might never have visited museums, and a boost to place-making and local tourism. 

The Leader of the Council agreed that:

      i.        Surrey County Council will provide support of up to £400,000 – paid at a max of up to £100,000 per annum (pa) for each of four years - commencing April 2018, to the Watts Gallery Trust to enable the Trust to continue and further develop its work with schools and community, its learning programmes, and its programmes of work targeted to health and wellbeing outcomes … where these are to the benefit of Surrey residents; and

     ii.        the Director of Legal, Democratic and Cultural Services will finalise the terms of an agreement with the Watts Gallery Trust to enable the provision of the funding.