THE MAN running Yeadon Town Hall has pledged the venue will survive despite missing out on government funding.

Jamie Hudson, CEO of the community interest company running the building spoke out after the decision not to award it any of the national £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund last week. He criticised the way the money was distributed as “unfair and unjust”.

Mr Hudson, who took over responsibility for running the 140-year-old building last year said he felt let down and betrayed by the decision to refuse any of the £120,000 it had applied for.

He argued: “How could our organisation, which helps and supports so many people in the community and represents the third largest theatre in Leeds (by capacity) not be seen as culturally significant?”

But he stressed:“YTH isn’t going anywhere, it might be tight, but we will survive, however, we should have been awarded monies from the cultural grant.”

The theatre usually employs ten members of staff, who had been kept on through lockdown via the furlough scheme, but now all bar two have been made redundant.The community interest company raised nearly £2 million to take over and restore the building last year, with improvement work currently ongoing.

Mr Hudson said:“For many years local councillor Ryk Downes, with the community and in recent years myself, have worked tirelessly to restore and maintain this fantastic asset. However, since March, income has drastically fallen by 95 per cent due to the global Covid pandemic. Expectant of a bumper year, 2020 was to be a superb run of theatre shows, comedy, boxing, ballet, musicals - you name it and we had it.

“Our survival between March to August was due to the money we had alongside the hospitality rates grant and an emergency grant from the Arts Council. However, the total of these two grants was only £55,000 which is 1/9 of our anticipated turnover for 2020. Through opening the Town Hall Tavern and running a monthly community market, we have just managed to cover all outgoing expenditure; nevertheless, like all old buildings, the Town Hall costs a significant amount of money to repair and maintain. We’ve had to adapt very quickly to survive.”

He said the announcement of the Culture Recovery Fund earlier this year was seen as a lifeline and gave organisations inspiration to battle on. But he argued many had been left “high and dry” by the way the money was distributed.

“Those that were successful won big time and those that failed were left with nothing. This feels completely unfair and unjust,” he added.

Mr Hudson said in the first found of funding1963 organisations applied, 1385 were successful and 578 were rejected.

“I firmly believe there was plenty of money available to split fairly between many more organisations and there was no excuse not to help a larger majority, even if some grants were significantly lower than requested,” he stressed.