Save Somerset Arts Petition now has over 3,000 Signatures

Thanks to everyone who has signed the ‘Save Somerset Arts’ petition. We now have over 3,000 signatures but we need 2,000 more by 16 December to initiate a new debate with the County Council over the reinstatement of a fair arts development budget.

You can access the online petition by going to gopetition.com

The petition has been set up in response to Somerset Country Council’s decision to cut 100% of next year’s £159,000 arts development budget. If the cuts go ahead Arts organisations in Somerset will not be able to continue the same levels of arts activities within communities. Children and young people will have fewer opportunities to access arts and education. Vulnerable people, including isolated, older and disabled people, will have limited chances to benefit from social and health related arts projects.

As long as you live, study or are employed in Somerset you are eligible to sign but under 18s should ask permission from a parent or guardian. Hundreds of people from Somerset have left moving comments supporting the petition and the value of Somerset arts funding. You can read them by visiting the petition at gopetition.com

Ralph Lister, the Director of Take Art said, “We are delighted by the amazing response to the petition but we still need people to get online and sign, or to go along to their local arts venue and write their name on one of the hundreds of paper petitions. We are also asking people to spread the word by contacting their Somerset based contacts, forwarding the facebook event or taking petitions out into their communities.”

You can also access the online petition by visiting the Take Art homepage at http://www.takeart.org and clicking through to the petition link.