Clear up uncertainty over artistic services cutbacks

We've written an open letter in response.

Dear Wiltshire County Council, It was interesting to read your views on the cuts to Wiltshire Music Service in your letter to the Salisbury Journal.

Unfortunately we don't think that the opinions of the 4,506 people who have signed the petition have been listened to.

We’d be grateful if you could publicly respond to the following questions and concerns as they have been raised by a number of people across Wiltshire.

Our concerns and questions are: Why are you breaking up a valuable team of professionally trained music teachers?

What will you do if they don’t opt to go self-employed in Wiltshire but instead seek work in different areas of the UK that still value and invest in music?

One of the biggest assets to the Wiltshire Music Service is the musical instrument loan.

Will this go if there are no staff to arrange this?

Music teachers will be under no obligation to facilitate it.

Are you aware that 40 per cent of music GCSE and A level exams are based on instrumental performance, which relies heavily on the influence of Wiltshire Music Service’s peripatetic music teachers?

Are you prepared to see music results fall?

Have you considered that contracted staff currently give up holidays and weekends for rehearsals, concerts and tours?

With your proposed changes these will have to be paid for or they simply won’t happen at all.

How will you ensure that children of low-middle income families and children in rural communities won’t be affected by the changes?

Our understanding is that Arts Council funding is given for a limited period, such as a three year term.

As you will know, arts grants are incredibly competitive and evidence based – what happens if the Wiltshire Music Hub misses out on future grants?

How can you guarantee that there will always be funding?

We understand the Music Hub will need to commission agencies to deliver services such as First Access group teaching (a service allowing everyone access to music tuition from trained music teachers).

If this is the case, why are they not commissioning Wiltshire Music Service to do this?

Have you actually spoken to schools?

When were they asked their views and are they really comfortable with the move?

We urge you and the media to talk to schools.

Are you currently in a consultation period?

What other options have you considered during this period?

So far we don’t feel you have listened to the views of the 4,506 people who have signed the petition.

Will you reconsider your decision to cut Wiltshire Music Service and will you be hosting a meeting to discuss the cuts for all parties concerned?

We look forward to your response.

Save Wiltshire Music

Like so may others I am devastated to hear that £89,000 is being cut from the Salisbury Arts Centre.

I have sent yet another email to MP John Glen complaining bitterly as why has the whole lot is being taken from our magnificent art centre at Salisbury, and no cuts to other venues.

Has someone got a vendetta against our centre?

I am pleased that no other venues are being affected but I want to know why it's just the art centre.

The arts centre has brought so much entertainment and joy to families over the years and it's not only therapeutic but it gives parents an outlet for children. It helps parents to guide their children and steer them away from drugs and crime.

Over the years my husband and I have spent many happy hours at the arts centre with some wonderful people. While I was in my forties I suffered a breakdown in my health and the arts centre has given me so much confidence and I am now being rewarded for my poetry, and it’s all thanks to colleagues at the centre.

We have had such a lot of support from personnel at the centre.

There's no reason why anyone should feel alone and it's a wonderful place and not costly to socialise.

I am devastated for a great number of my disabled colleagues that put on plays and also exhibitions at this centre. I feel we are being victimised and badly discriminated against and I am concerned that the centre will have to close altogether.

I'd be glad if our local tabloid could help find answers.

The Salisbury Journal do us proud bringing us all the local news each week and I hope this doesn't get cut.

Salisbury is part of me and I feel like I have two homes, one in Shipton Bellinger and the other in Salisbury as I lived at Avon Terrace when I was very young.

God bless the city of Angels.

Josie Smith

Shipton Bellinger

I LEFT school with no qualifications but went on to take a degree, a masters and a PhD.

I’ve made films and published academic papers on, among other things, film, art, architecture and language.

I’ve been teaching in art schools and universities for 20 years and now run a fine art department at the School of Music and Fine Art in Kent. You know where this journey began?

Attending art classes at the Salisbury Arts Centre, being a member of Young Arts and then experiencing some magical, life-changing, consciousness-shaping plays, exhibitions and music.

Seeing Ken Laily's Jazz Band featuring the now legendary Andy Shepard and the still innovating Forkbeard Fantasy, and discovering, in Trestle Theatre company’s rendition of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist that there's a richer, deeper world out there.

I was befriended by wonderful staff like Gary Nunn and the performer Liz Snow who nurtured a curious mind.

From these experiences I learnt that life has many dimensions and, at its best, by taking us to exquisite heights as we fathom the deepest depths of despair, art can be healing and restorative.

Through art we can make sense of the world and see life as a subtle balancing act between the ineffable and ephemeral and the eternal and immutable.

What price can be put on that?

Wiltshire Council are carrying out the savage coalition government’s programme of cuts so that young people today won’t have the opportunities the wonderful Salisbury Arts Centre afforded to me.

Dr Andrew Conio

Director of studies, fine art, School of Music, Uni of Kent

I HAVE just heard that Wiltshire Council has cut 100 per cent of the annual grant funding it gives to Salisbury Arts Centre.

This is a devastating piece of news for those of us who support the venue and their many projects, particularly those that work with children, the most vulnerable in our community and those just starting out in the arts.

I am not aware of any other arts organisation in Wiltshire that serves both our rural and urban communities in such a broad, consistent, approachable and everyday way.

It makes excellence in the arts extremely accessible and the quality of human interaction that visitors experience is exceptional at the Salisbury Arts Centre. It has heart and soul and a feeling like a welcoming family.

This simply doesn't happen to the same extent in other arts venues. I believe that Wiltshire Council has made a significant mistake in this instance.

Surely the sudden withdrawal of 100 per cent of grant funding for a single organisation is unreasonable and it seems a bit of a lazy option for making the books balance.

If council officers have recommended this massive blow, perhaps it is because Trowbridge is almost on another planet in terms of cultural understanding and maybe the geographical distance means that they and the Wiltshire councillors who will have voted on a recommendation have possibly not attended events and performances at the Salisbury Arts Centre.

I realise that big spending cuts have to be made, and it is invariably the arts and the most vulnerable in any society who seem to suffer the most from these, but in this instance I think that there is likely to be a little more local noise than the good folk at County Hall in Trowbridge may have anticipated.

Surely it would make more sense to spread the cuts more widely, and then encourage arts organisations to find ways to deal with smaller shortfalls in their annual budget by suggesting efficiencies, other funding opportunities and targeting some new activities to be more appealing and profitable?

To make one organisation suffer a 100 per cent grant cut is not acceptable.

I urge our local representatives to listen to their community.

Jane Launchbury

Salisbury