Arts cuts will cause local pain

It will be months, years even, before we know how severe the effect of the arts cuts will be, and yesterday's announcement of a soft start – a 6.9% first-year cut for most arts bodies – will be seen as good news. But expect some of the biggest losers to be any organisation overly reliant on local government funding. Councils in Manchester, for example, will meet on Friday to agree "a fundamental review" of the £3.7m in grants they give to everything from the Hallé to the Cornerhouse to the Bolton Octagon. In Somerset, a demonstration is being organised outside next Monday's county council cabinet meeting, where a proposal will be discussed to stop all spending on the arts.