Applauding the purchase of The Snug are, from left, Claire Mera-Nelson, director of Music for Arts Council England; The Snug’s owner/operator Rachael Flaszczak; John Whittingdale, minister for Creative Industries; and Mark Davyd, CEO of Music Venue Trust.
The U.K.’s Music Venue Trust has acquired its first venue, the 100 capacity The Snug in Manchester, as part of its #ownourvenues scheme.
The venue is now owned by Music Venue Properties, the independent charitable society MVT created to revolutionize cultural ownership in the U.K.
MVP has secured the freehold of the building occupied by The Snug and placed it into permanent protected status. The venue’s operators have signed a “cultural lease” which guarantees that, as long as the venue operates as a space for grassroots live music for the local community, they can enjoy the use of the building.
MVP has committed to offer a rent reduction and contribution toward building repairs and insurance. Mark Dayvd, CEO of Music Venue Trust, said the purchase is “the culmination of a long-held ambition.”
“It shows a way forward not just for music, but for community ownership right across the U.K.,” he continued. “We hope we have created a template that can be replicated wherever a community highly values a cultural asset.”
MVP has identified another eight venues across England, Scotland and Wales for a pilot project that will allow the scheme to establish proof of concept. The project was made possible by over 1.2k individual investors, including a £500k investment from Arts Council England and Arts & Culture Finance.
It was established in response to the crisis facing independent grassroots venues in the U.K., 16% of which have closed in the last 12 months. Ninety-three per cent of GMVs are tenants with the typical operator only having 18 months left on their tenancy. This issue of ownership, says MVT, underpins almost every other challenge that the venues have faced during the last 20 years including gentrification, noise complaints, under-investment and an inability to plan for the future.
