The cultural sector in Redditch received a significant boost from the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, with £5 million awarded in the Budget to support arts and culture in the town.
Rachel Maclean, MP for Redditch and the Villages, has been campaigning for increased investment from the Chancellor, championing the Palace Theatre, community arts and crafts, pop-up galleries and museums, calling for levelling up funding to be fairly distributed across the country. The funding recognises the crucial role culture can play in levelling up, supporting pride in place, whilst ensuring that all areas that have been previously prioritised for levelling up investment benefit. Redditch Borough Council will provisionally be awarded the money.
The Levelling Up Fund has been established by the government to address regional disparities and support economic growth. The funding injection will support several cultural projects in Redditch; consultation with a wide range of stakeholders will now take place and Redditch Borough Council has been asked to formulate an investment plan for the town.
Rachel said: "This is fantastic news for Redditch. Arts and culture are embedded into the fabric of Redditch, celebrating the town's rich industrial heritage. This announcement of £5 million will allow creativity to flourish in the town, boost the local economy and demonstrates that levelling up really does benefit all parts of the country. I have been pressing for greater support for this sector - I love the creativity of local people. We have the thriving Palace Theatre that could benefit from increased capacity, and improvements to the Forge Mill Museum would allow for a wide variety of uses - this multi million-pound investment really will be transformational.
"The Chancellor also announced a number of measures that supports household incomes including a reduction in National Insurance payments, a rise in the child benefit threshold to £60,000 and increasing the level of when the self-employed start to pay VAT to £90,000. I also know that the freeze in fuel and alcohol duty is extremely good news for road users and the hospitality sector. Our pubs, clubs, restaurants and hotels support a thriving industry, creating thousands of jobs - we all enjoy popping into our local or a meal out - and is very much part of the UK social scene.
"Guaranteeing rates paid to childcare providers to deliver the government's free childcare scheme enables nurseries and other providers to plan with certainty, offers parents the flexibility, and option, to return to employment which I know is very much welcomed by families in Redditch. Transforming how the NHS delivers its services is also great news for my constituents. The government has committed to fund the NHS productivity plan in full with a focus on IT, digitising operating theatres, greater use of AI and more digitally integrated. At the Alex, I have seen first-hand how the use of technology improves patient care with state-of-the-art robot assisted surgery, the brand-new breast imaging unit and the Garden suite Chemotherapy unit.''
