Written evidence submitted by the Southbank Centre
Introduction
The Southbank Centre is Europe’s largest arts centre and the UK’s 5th most visited attraction. Over 20 million visitors a year come to our 11-acre heritage site which includes 3 performance venues, the Hayward Gallery, free outdoor spaces as well as bars and restaurants. The Grade I listed Royal Festival Hall became one of the world’s landmark performance venues when it opened as part of the 1951 Festival of Britain. The ambition and values of the Festival of Britain – that arts, ideas and innovation should be available and accessible to everyone – remain the guiding principles of the Southbank Centre today.
The Southbank Centre sits on 11 acres of public government-owned land, in the heart of London, opposite the seat of government. The site is owned by DCMS and managed by the Southbank Centre Charity on behalf of the UK government and the public. We receive an annual grant from the Arts Council solely for the provision of artistic activity – as of February 2025 this grant has declined in real terms by 47% since 2010, this represents a £15.1m real terms reduction. Other arts companies have benefitted from the introduction and increases in the Creative Tax reliefs but these have only minor benefit for the Southbank Centre.
Over the last two decades, the Southbank Centre has developed a business model which maximises the commercial potential of our site, in ways which underpin the creative industries in the UK (for example as the host of the BAFTA Film, Television and Games Awards, the BFI London Film Festival and film premieres), while delivering an artistic programme of international significance across music, visual arts, literature and spoken word, dance and performance.
The most significant challenge for the Southbank Centre is maintaining our heritage buildings and estate without access to capital funding from the Government or Arts Council England or, since 2016, the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Despite our effectiveness in blending commercial and subsidised models, increased costs (inflation and security in particular) and a cut in our Arts Council England funding have presented major challenges for our operating budgets. Sustaining our work requires a Royal Festival Hall which is fit for purpose.
The last capital investment in the Royal Festival Hall was completed in 2007 (public investment including Lottery was £66.4m). Now outdated facilities compromise our future, both by undermining our commercial competitiveness to attract world-class performances and by shackling us to high carbon, inefficient energy systems.
- What interventions are needed to prevent the managed decline of heritage assets on publicly-owned land?
There needs to be a sustainable source of capital funding available to those performing arts organisations who have to maintain heritage buildings (Southbank Centre’s charitable objectives require us to maintain the heritage estate and venues). The National Museums and Galleries which are NDPBs have access to regular capital funding directly from the DCMS as well as ad-hoc capital funding schemes. Arts Council's National Portfolio Organisations are able to apply for small amounts of capital funding on a competitive basis but the amounts available are too insignificant to address the scale of investment needed.
The current funding model for cultural performing arts organisations that are part of the Arts Council England's National Portfolio does not allow for the upkeep of those important heritage assets that are ultimately owned by the Government including the Southbank Centre. The Southbank Centre’s funding as part of ACE’s National Portfolio supports the artistic programme exclusively. While we appreciate this public funding, as custodians of nationally significant heritage assets we feel we are left to fend for ourselves when it comes to capital and upkeep of what is ultimately Government land.
While the National Lottery Heritage Fund is a source of exceptional and occasional capital funding, changes to its criteria and strategy mean that grants are typically capped at £10m and access to their funding for work to repair or upgrade complex buildings like our own also requires applicants to develop activities which engage the public with the historic fabric of our building. Whereas for a museum this engagement can be with a collection, and thus also meets the core purpose of the institution, for a performing arts venue it requires programming additional activities to those determined by our charitable objectives to engage the public in the arts. Although NLHF grants play a crucial role in supporting the UK’s heritage sector, they are highly competitive and do not represent a sustainable source of income for any organisation, especially not for a historic performing arts venue in London such as our own.
- What should long-term public funding for the sector look like?
Organisations that manage cultural heritage buildings should have access to Lottery funding explicitly for infrastructure investment in ways comparable to the direct DCMS investment in national museums and galleries. As John Major himself said, the National Lottery was set up to support the arts and national infrastructure:
“I established the Lottery because I believed that sport, the arts, and our national heritage would never be able to compete with health and education to attract taxpayers’ funds, and therefore lost out…
My hope was to upgrade our national infrastructure and encourage active involvement in sport and the arts, as well as promote a greater appreciation of our national heritage.”
29 April 2005
We agree with the recommendation in the recent research paper Scene Change
by National Theatre for a Historic Leveraged Capital Fund for sustainable infrastructure which suggests there is a “generational opportunity to transform this [announcement of additional capita funding in the 2024 autumn budget] investment into a leveraged capital scheme, aimed to appeal to a new generation of benefactors and corporates, which would bring in a philanthropic match to the government expenditure.”
However, the recommendation suggests a combination of grants and repayable finance. Whilst we think repayable funding is worth exploring, it's only viable when energy costs aren't rising and volatile, public funding isn't falling, and the costs of retrospective net zero interventions in heritage buildings are less extortionate.
We also think there is a case to be made for the largest performing arts organisations to have a more direct funding relationship with the Government when it comes to capital and investment in infrastructure - especially in the buildings it owns. Southbank Centre is in a no-win situation without Government capital funding - it can’t leverage private financing for the Royal Festival Hall if it has no ownership. It is also far harder to attract private philanthropy for government-owned buildings without a government commitment of investment.
Cultural buildings like the Southbank Centre play a huge role as part of the cultural ecology and as a key driver of growth; creating jobs, attracting visitors, and increasing community engagement.
The South Bank is one of the original examples of cultural regeneration and the area has grown into a thriving cultural and creative district and a major visitor destination. The Southbank Centre welcomes 3.1 million visitors a year to its buildings and is the 5th most visited attraction in the UK; the footfall across the 11-acre site is over 20 million visitors. The bars and restaurants on-site support the area as a major destination and the artistic and community groups that use the centre means it is a busy and valued cultural and social asset.
- How can heritage buildings be supported to increase energy efficiency and contribute to the Government’s net zero targets?
The Royal Festival Hall had its last major upgrade in 2005, which included a number of sustainability initiatives. We continue to be engaged with sustainability although we recognise that there is a long way to go before we meet net zero.
The significant amount of single glazing in the building is a major cause of overheating. Cooling is provided by mechanical means with associated high energy costs. Replacing this glazing comes at a huge cost (as well as disruption to the public and arts programme) but it has to be done - and over the years, would return a big saving in energy.
Access to Salix funding (Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme) would help heritage organisations with their net-zero targets. Salix funding is so-called after the company which administers it on behalf of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. Phase 4 of the funding opened in October 2024 and closed in November 2024.
The eligibility criteria for the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme were changed for Phase 4. Among the changes was the exclusion of charities unless they were Non-Departmental Public Bodies (NDPB). NDPBs are a specific list of organisations defined by the Cabinet Office. Southbank is not a NDPB. This change meant that although we had been eligible previously and although we did meet the other criteria (including being a public authority) we are now excluded as a charity. This puts Southbank Centre at a significant disadvantage compared to other arts and heritage organisations, who like us are maintaining government-owned buildings, but are NDPBs such as the Tate, the National Gallery, and the British Library.
The additional costs of preserving a heritage building include premium prices, as a lot of the materials and design elements are bespoke and often only available in small batches from single supplier sources. For example, the (Grade one) stone flooring in the Royal Festival Hall is only available from one quarry in Wales and we have to account for long lead times and higher prices as the stone is usually sourced on order.
Regulation similarly incurs additional time and cost in securing design approval that is sensitive to the heritage design, but which is now expected to meet current day design standards for thermal efficiency, accessibility, technical specifications such as acoustics.
In practical terms, the maintenance of a heritage structure requires longer lead times, more considered design work and also additional cost. Sometimes the slower mobilisation also necessitates interim short-term repairs that have to be redone when the final design and materials are available (particularly on a high-use facility such as the Royal Festival Hall).
Furthermore, regulations do not always support the development of the building to achieve its original purposes to further the arts (the heritage aspect is prioritised over the operational and being able to incorporate modern technology).
- What policy changes are needed to make restoring historic buildings easier and less expensive?
It would be very helpful if planning policy relating to listed buildings were more sensitive to the use of suitable alternatives where the client has more discretion in the selection and specification. Indeed, it is important to preserve the heritage design integrity but this could be balanced with a greater weight of trust in landlords who value the asset and wish to preserve the facility in an agile and affordable manner.
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