A £2.9 MILLION project to refurbish the Jersey Arts Centre could be in doubt as delays in carrying out the work mean that – like the Opera House – it has failed to meet the timescale for the Fiscal Stimulus Fund.
Money allocated as part of the post-Covid stimulus fund will now be returned to the Treasury Department, with no guarantee of an alternative source of funding.
‘Discussions are now taking place regarding potential alternative funding for the Arts Centre work. This will be subject to a suitable funding source with available funds being identified. We are unable to confirm further details until alternative funding is identified,’ a government spokesperson said.
The position contrasts with a statement released on behalf of the Arts Centre by director Daniel Austin, who said that they had been told at a meeting in February that the £2.9 million awarded last year from the Fiscal Stimulus Fund ‘would be sourced from another budget’.
‘We are therefore looking forward to being able to progress with the works, and complete the works, throughout 2022,’ Mr Austin said.
To qualify for money from the Fiscal Stimulus Fund, those who submitted proposals initially had to provide an end date for their project that came before the end of 2021. It is understood that that element of the submission process was later relaxed to include projects that were at an advanced stage but had not been completed by the end of last year.
Refurbishment of the Arts Centre is the second government-managed arts project to fall foul of the administration’s own deadlines for the Fiscal Stimulus Fund. Earlier this year £2.2 million for the Opera House was returned from the fund for the same reason, although it was subsequently agreed to provide the money for the Gloucester Street theatre from a different source. Officers from the Economic Development Department are currently in discussion with the Treasury to try to find another £2.8 million now required to reopen the Opera House after it was discovered that the costs of maintenance work would be much higher than initially thought.
Commenting on the situation at the Arts Centre, the government spokesperson said: ‘We can confirm that as the Arts Centre project no longer meets the criteria for the Fiscal Stimulus Fund, it has been removed from the programme.’
Although the Arts Centre has its own management committee, which successfully secured the funding for the refurbishment, practical arrangements for the work have been managed by the government’s property department, Jersey Property Holdings, which also took charge of the Opera House refurbishment.
Last year, Assistant Economic Development Minister Kirsten Morel, the politician with responsibility for culture, failed in a bid to persuade the Treasury Department to relax procurement rules that would have allowed JPH to short-cut the appointment process for a project manager for the Opera House work which is now scheduled to be completed next summer.
It was in April last year that the Arts Centre was first told it had been awarded £2.9 million from the ‘timely, temporary and targeted’ fund set up to support the Island’s economic recovery from the pandemic.
The work would update the building’s infrastructure, some of which dates from its opening in the mid-1980s.
