£2m for art on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal

IT WAS announced today (Thursday) that £2 millions is to be spent on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal as the centrepiece of a creative corridor for the arts.

Canal & River Trust, has been awarded £2 millions of funding from Arts Council England's Creative people and places programme. The money, we are told, will be used to connect the communities that live on and alongside the canal and beyond in Pennine Lancashire through high profile, world-class arts and events.

Local people

The programme will be inspired by the canal and adjacent waterways, and over the next 10 years, local people will be involved in programming, producing art projects that have roots in the waterway communities they pass through. Ideas include festivals, screenings, performance, environmental arts projects, temporary digital installations, exhibitions and pop-up cultural spaces.

We are told the Leeds & Liverpool Canal will become known locally, nationally and internationally as place the to come for a unique heritage, cultural and leisure experience.

In partnership

CaRT is working in partnership with Arts Partners in Pennine Lancashire (APPL), Barnfield Construction Limited and Groundwork Pennine Lancashire, in a three years programme community-led arts project, which will stretch from Blackburn to Brierfield along the waterway.

The funding comes from Arts Council England's Creative people and places programme, which is designed to empower communities to take the lead in shaping local arts provision. Today Arts Council England announced 11 successful applications, which have been awarded a total of just over £18 million over the next three years.