Music Venue Trust responds to Spring Budget and warns that 2023 "will be the worst year for closures"

Earlier today (15 March) the Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt presented his Spring Budget to Parliament, and Music Venue Trust, the UK charity that protects, secures and improves grassroots music venues has responded, and has warned that this year could be the worst for venue closures.

Music Venue Trust wrote, "MVT presented to DCMS and HM Treasury details of the negative impacts that failure to extend the enhanced business energy relief scheme would have on Grassroots Music Venues from April1st 2023. Already in 2023 1 Grassroots Music Venue is closing every week. The budget was an opportunity to ensure that this number of closures did not explode from the April 1st when Grassroots Music Venues will be hit by excessive and unaffordable energy bills. The Chancellor has failed to respond to the evidence we submitted. There is no additional support for music venues and the inevitable result will be mass closures of venues."

As well as highlighting that the Grassroots Music Venue sector has been "overlooked" with the past five budgets, Music Venue Trust wrote that they "welcome the support for theatres, museums, art galleries and orchestras, but once again we note that all of the Chancellor's announcements on tax relief for these sectors exclude Grassroots Music Venues and artists."

Music Venue Trust concluded, "Regrettably, the failure to act on energy bills must inevitably mean that 2023 will be the worst year for closures since the creation of Music Venue Trust in 2014. In the absence of any action to this challenge by the Government we will once again be reaching out to the energy supply companies to try to avert closures. It is plainly in no one's interest to allow buildings that house Grassroots Music Venues to become abandoned as the cost of energy needed to open those spaces to the public and performers cannot be met by any venue operator."

Music Venue Trust Spring Budget Response Statement:https://t.co/SABoYIWwK0 pic.twitter.com/8f36etkM9M

— Music Venue Trust (@musicvenuetrust) March 15, 2023