2.3. Cultural assets and funding

• Bradford has 12 ACE National Portfolio Organisations (NPO)
• Bradford has a similar number of studio spaces but fewer theatre seats, cinema screens, music venues and art galleries compared to Sheffield and Newcastle & Gateshead. The professional production capacity in Bradford’s theatres is limited, with more community and amateur activity compared to other cities.
• Bradford has a strong heritage sector with a comparable number of museums and two UNESCO listings, and twice as many listed buildings per head as comparable cities.

Bradford’s arts sector benefits from some investment by Arts Council England (ACE), but despite being the 5th largest metropolitan district by population in England, ACE investment is only ranked 78th out of 180 authorities.

While the district has 12 ACE National Portfolio Organisations (NPO), there is no major orchestra in Bradford and no producing theatre on the scale of, for example, Sheffield Crucible or Leeds Playhouse. The district also has only one NPO in visual arts (Impressions Gallery). 

However, positive changes are happening. The last 2 rounds of NPO awards included the additions of the Bradford Literature Festival, Bronte Society, Common Wealth, Tranquil Productions, Bloomin’ Buds Theatre Company, and Bradford Museum Galleries. However, the sector also saw the loss of NPO funding to Artworks and Freedom Studies, and Bradford still has no major producing theatre or music NPO.

In 2019, Bradford also won major new investment from ACE to become one of its new Creative People and Places locations, as well as one of only two pilot producing hubs in England.

The Arts Council will invest over £10million between 2023-26 in Bradford, an increase of 89%. This includes a significant increase in funding for Bradford Literature Festival, now over £1m per year and Kala Sangam saw the largest percentage increase in ACE funding.⁴³

The table in Appendix 2 shows recent ACE funding rounds awards for Bradford District between 2023-26. Sites in Yorkshire and The Humber were supported with £124m, or 8.72% of the total. The total value for the Bradford recipients is £5,533,539.

In 2021, BOP Consulting undertook a comprehensive mapping of Bradford’s cultural economy. This research mapped cultural provision and infrastructure in the district and compared it to other comparator cities with similar populations – Sheffield and Newcastle & Gateshead.⁴⁴ See the Appendix for an overview of cultural assets in Bradford.⁴⁵ Headlines from this research show a relatively low level of public investment in culture compared to national averages and shows that NPO grants are below half of comparator cities. However, the research shows that local authority spending has maintained despite continued austerity. 

This research identified Bradford’s distinctive creative sector profile, and some unique cultural assets. But it also points out that cultural organisations tend to be smaller and have less production capacity than those in comparator cities such as Sheffield
and Newcastle. 

In terms of the theatre scene in Bradford, BOP identified that the district has a similar number of venues compared to other cities of its size. However, the number of seats in these venues is significantly lower. The professional production capacity in Bradford’s theatres is limited, and there is a higher concentration of community and amateur activity compared to other similar cities. While this data is now somewhat historic, we have included the key datasets in the appendix as they reflect historic and longstanding patterns of cultural provision. We have updated some of the key data below (but not to the same depth as BOP).

Table 3: Cultural infrastructure in Bradford District

Source: BOP Consulting 2020 and Bradford Council

Next: Gaps in the data