Letter: Sponsorship for the rich: what a way to fund the arts

WHERE, in the reported study, are local arts centres, festivals, amateur arts, youth arts, disability arts, prison arts, hospital arts, listening to records or tapes, arts programmes on the media and the entire form of self-administered arts experience known as reading?

A more sensible definition produces a dramatically different social profile. So patrons of '87 major UK venues' are old and rich: who said the 87 venues have a monopoly of excellence or are the right vehicles for reaching the majority of the population?

Funding with this aim should be directed to local networks, and the Arts Council, whatever form its next incarnation, should have a strategy for local arts development at the top of its list.

Gabriel Chanan

Community Development Foundation

London N5