John Hewitt Jones looks at the looming issues caused by the impact of the arts cuts

Sometimes it becomes necessary to bash a drum. Not in a meaningless English Defence League-esque let's-make-as-much-noise-as-possible-and-drown-out-the-bastards kind of way, but just loud enough to create background discord that makes people sit up and think.

It seems quite important to make people aware that the thumping noise is highlighting cuts made to an industry that affects every single person across the UK and contributes £57.3 billion to the UK economy.

It’s necessary because, in general, the creative industries aren’t very good at defending themselves. When the government made the initial decision to cut the budget for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport back in 2010, the voices of protest were hard to decipher.

A ‘Lost Arts’ website was launched, hosting a variety of indignant speeches from high profile celebrities, and several darlings of stage and screen came out to protest, but much was lost amid the media furore.

Ultimately, there is little more that members of the creative industries can do to try and draw awareness to the ‘grass roots’ effects of the arts cuts. In April, after a government announcement that stricter financial regulation of banks might well be in order, large banks such as Barclays and HSBC warned that they would leave London should the measures be too drastic.

Creative industries are unable to threaten to up-sticks in the same way. Such a notion is of course an impossibility for a sector centred on British heritage and British emotional life.

It was therefore extremely saddening to read Bianca Brigitte Bonomi’s article in the Independent last Friday, based on her experiences co-ordinating the Hay-on-Wye arts and ideas festivals HowTheLightGetsIn and Crunch.

This was a piece which dismissed the gravity of the funding cuts made to Britain’s arts sector over the last year-and-a-half, arguing that those working within the sector would do best to shut up and get on with it.

I would urge Ms Bonomi to question her evaluation of the arts cuts. The most significant reduction made over the last year and a half has been the 29% decrease in funding made available to the Arts Council England; an organisation which provides financial support to an enormous range of institutions throughout England.

Arts organisations such as The Northumberland Theatre Company, The Dukes Playhouse and Wee Stories Theatre, exist in order to inspire communities who otherwise do not have the opportunity of exposure to any other artistic projects. These are just a few of the organisations that have had their funding cut from 2012 and several face closure.

Even in the face of adversity, arts organisations will continue to exist, but taking them for granted would appear to be an error of monumental proportions. The festivals run by Ms Bonomi to which she makes continuous reference are a fantastic symposium for ideas, but they reach a limited audience.

An £80 price tag means that they naturally attract an audience that appeals to large corporate sponsors. A quick glance at the HowTheLightGetsIn website shows that donors include Prospect Magazine, Intelligent Life, Blackwell’s and and Spear’s Wealth Management Survey.

Such a creative merging of business and the arts is of course extremely positive, but it should not be forgotten that smaller, equally valuable cultural projects are unable to attract large corporate sponsorship precisely because they don’t reach out to the right target audience. This year is the 6oth anniversary of the Festival of Britain; a moment of cultural renaissance which saw a realisation of the significance of culture to the moral and emotional health of the nation.

Access to the arts should be a right, not a privilege. In the past this country has had a reasonable track record in achieving universality of access through funding directed at education and outreach projects. It would seem imprudent to underestimate the impact that cuts to these will have on a future Britain.