SURVIVAL GRANTS *SPECIAL : UNITED KINGSOM

Glastonbury Festival joins list of UK's Covid survival grant. A total of 2,700 museums, theaters, cinemas, arts venues are part of Pound 1.57 billion CRF package.

LONDON : Glastonbury Festival will join 2,700 museums, theaters, cinemas and art venues in receiving a share of Pound 400 million in grants and loans to help them survive the Covid-19 pandemic, the British government announced on Friday.

Entertainment venues across Britain were forced to close last March because of the coronavirus crisis and while some partially reopened last summer, many have remained shut since then.

Last July the government unveiled a Pound 1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund [CRF] package of grants and loans, and on Friday detailed where the latest tranche of funding would be spent.

Among the recipients is Glastonbury, the largest greenfield music festival in the world, which has been forced to cancel for two years running. It will receive Pound 900,000 to help carry it through to 2022.

''This grant will make a huge difference in helping to secure our future,'' founder Michael Eavis and daughter Emily said in a statement. Tens of millions of pounds have been made available to theaters, while the English Heritage Trust, which looks after 420 historic monuments, buildings and objects, will receive Pound 23.4 million.

The British Film Institute has also awarded Pound 6.5 million to help independent cinemas. The government says the CRF has helped protect more than 75,000 jobs and ensure thousands of organisations survive the Covid crisis.

''Now, we're staying by their side as they prepare top welcome the public back through their doors,'' culture minister Oliver Dowden said.

Under the government's pandemic ''roadmap'', it is hoped many venues will be reopen to live audiences from Mid-May and that latest funding is designed to help theaters, museums and comedy clubs make necessary preparations.

The government was accused last month of being too slow to hand out CRF money to recipients, with parliament's spending watchdog saying only Pound 495 million of the first Pound 1 billion tranche had been paid out by late February.

The culture department said nearly all the Pound 1.57 billion had now been allocated. [Reuters]