Government minister Ed Vaizey has sung Bath’s praises as he embarked on a whistle-stop tour of the city’s cultural attractions.
The Conservative visited the Holburne Museum, the Fashion Museum, the Museum of East Asian Art and the egg theatre, as well as attending a reception at the Roman Baths.
He was able to find out about the last-minute preparations for the reopening of the Holburne and about a new Arts Council-funded project at the egg which will turn the theatre into a classroom.
The culture minister said: “Bath is a most remarkable place. As you walk around the streets, you find there is a gem on every corner.”
At the Holburne, which is about to reopen after a £13 million expansion which has seen the development of a striking extension on the Sydney Gardens side of the building, he said he was impressed by the gallery’s commitment to educational work.
“You want to make sure that a museum like this which has resources to provide education is integrated into the community,” he said. “The key thing is to join up the dots.”
The Holburne has just received a grant of £125,000 from the Clore Duffield Foundation arts funding charity to develop a new education zone, but on the other hand has also lost £80,000 of money from the Higher Education Funding Council for England.
Mr Vaizey said that decision was taken “at arms length” from his department and that the quango was simply interpreting its own funding rules.
Bath MP Don Foster, who was Mr Vaizey’s tour guide and who works closely with him as the Liberal Democrats’ culture and sport spokesman, is however campaigning to get the body to rethink the decision.
Other arts bodies in the city have also been winners and losers in the recent Arts Council grants process, with money for Bath Festivals but none for the Natural Theatre Company.
Mr Vaizey said was pleased with the way in which arts spending had survived the worst of the public spending squeeze.
“We have managed to protect the front line as much as possible,” he said.
He was also brought up to date with the city’s general efforts to promote its museums – with 17 within a single square mile.
The Year of the Museum campaign run by Bath Tourism Plus has come up with the idea of Bath in 100 Objects, with each museum nominating the most significant objects in their collection.
These are now displayed in a digital museum at the website visitbath.co.uk/100 objects, with objects spanning the years from the Roman era to the present day.
