POOLE’S Lighthouse has secured a £290,000 charitable grant to help it adapt to the pandemic.

But the arts centre is hoping to win more government help as it waits for news of when audiences can return.

Lighthouse is one of more than 100 arts organisations to benefit from the Weston Culture Fund, established by the charitable Garfield Weston Foundation to help cultural organisations in the pandemic.

The grant will help Lighthouse mitigate the risk of booking shows and establish a new “creation hub” at its Sherling Studio to support performers developing new work.

Grant will secure 'short-term' future of Poole's Lighthouse

Lighthouse chief executive Elspeth McBain said: “Lighthouse is hugely grateful to the Garfield Weston Foundation for this grant as it means we can plan for the future, post-pandemic.

“This funding will enable us to restart our work, refresh activities, re-engage audiences and widen the cultural offering to our community, providing opportunities to build a strong programme whilst also supporting smaller artistic companies.”

Lighthouse faced greatest threat ever, says chair of Poole Arts Trust

The government awarded the venue nearly £1million from its Culture Recovery Fund last year – but the bailout only covered the period until the end of March. Lighthouse has applied for a funding from a second tranche, with a decision expected in March.

Accounts published recently for Poole Arts Trust, which runs Lighthouse, showed the venue was doing well for the first 11 months of its financial year before the first Covid lockdown devastated business last March.

Poole's Lighthouse doing well until pandemic left it fighting for survival

Ms McBain told the Daily Echo that the centre’s “business plan has been kiboshed” by the pandemic.

“It has meant that the Culture Recovery Fund has been a lifesaver. We couldn’t have managed without it – but it does take us up to the end of March and we hadn’t ever dreamed that we would still be in lockdown now and not even knowing when we can open,” she said.

Arts centre battles on behind closed doors in third lockdown

“We had planned to be earning income, to be working, to have shows, to have the cafe open, to have the cinema open and that’s not been able to happen.

“The rates of infection in the locality were shockingly high, having been so low – so that even if we had been able to open some things, we couldn’t, just to support the local community.”

She added: “We’re making as many applications as we can for funding for income through the year. We’re keeping the staff team motivated because as an employer, we’ve got a good team and we don’t want to lose anybody. We’ve already had to lose six people through redundancy and we don’t want to lose any more.”

While some events have been streamed online, the venue does not produce work so had nothing of its own to put online.

The centre was “hoping to get back to some semblance of normality by summer” but did not know when full performances were likely to return.

“I can’t see the big commercial shows being ready to tour until 2022,” said Ms McBain.

The centre is working with several arts companies, including the Gecko theatre company, which is developing programmes to support regional theatres.

“What are the things we can do that won’t need a lot of time to prepare for and that we can put on sale quite late? There are all these uncertainties that will carry through until the end of this year,” she said.

Previous research has suggested Lighthouse is worth at least £14million a year to the local economy. “I think people will need the arts and entertainments to help the that recovery and the region certainly needs them in terms of economic recovery,” said Ms McBain.