The Public arts centre in West Bromwich is to close after Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council said it could no longer afford the £1.6m annual cost of financing the venue.
Sandwell Arts Trust, which runs the Public, will hand the building back to the council on 30 November and its programme of activities will cease. Negotiations to turn the building into a sixth-form college are ongoing.
Darren Cooper, leader of Sandwell council, said it costs about £30,000 a week to run the venue. “That money is council taxpayers’ money,” he added. “In the face of the cuts the council is facing from central government, this can’t carry on.”
Members of the Labour-run council will meet next week to discuss the long-term future of the Public.
But Paul Slater, chief executive of Sandwell Arts Trust, said: “We are very disappointed that financial circumstances have resulted in the council making this decision.”
The decision has also provoked angry comments on social networking sites such as Twitter under the hashtag #loveourpublic.
The LearnPlay Foundation, which provides an outreach service to schools and is based in the Public, has launched a petition to save the venue.
Visitor figures to the Public are at their highest level since it opened in 2009, with the one millionth visitor having recently been welcomed through the door. But the Black Country arts centre has been besieged with problems since its conception.
Arts Council England (ACE) spent £32m on the Public between 1996 and 2009, up from an original funding agreement of £19m.
The venue fully opened in 2009, two years late, but its operating company, the Public Gallery, went into administration and then liquidation in the same year.
A report by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee into the financing of arts and heritage criticised the funding of the Public by ACE as a “gross waste of public money” and a “failure of leadership”.
An internal investigation by ACE later concluded it had made “poor judgements” in funding the project despite “explicit misgivings”.
Sandwell Arts Trust, which runs the Public, will hand the building back to the council on 30 November and its programme of activities will cease. Negotiations to turn the building into a sixth-form college are ongoing.
Darren Cooper, leader of Sandwell council, said it costs about £30,000 a week to run the venue. “That money is council taxpayers’ money,” he added. “In the face of the cuts the council is facing from central government, this can’t carry on.”
Members of the Labour-run council will meet next week to discuss the long-term future of the Public.
But Paul Slater, chief executive of Sandwell Arts Trust, said: “We are very disappointed that financial circumstances have resulted in the council making this decision.”
The decision has also provoked angry comments on social networking sites such as Twitter under the hashtag #loveourpublic.
The LearnPlay Foundation, which provides an outreach service to schools and is based in the Public, has launched a petition to save the venue.
Visitor figures to the Public are at their highest level since it opened in 2009, with the one millionth visitor having recently been welcomed through the door. But the Black Country arts centre has been besieged with problems since its conception.
Arts Council England (ACE) spent £32m on the Public between 1996 and 2009, up from an original funding agreement of £19m.
The venue fully opened in 2009, two years late, but its operating company, the Public Gallery, went into administration and then liquidation in the same year.
A report by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee into the financing of arts and heritage criticised the funding of the Public by ACE as a “gross waste of public money” and a “failure of leadership”.
An internal investigation by ACE later concluded it had made “poor judgements” in funding the project despite “explicit misgivings”.
