Gainsborough's Trinity Arts Centre awarded £35,000 to support it through the coronavirus pandemic

The venue, based on Trinity Street, provides a “vital and invaluable” service to the community and has been closed for two months. It was due to host a number of sellout shows and performances.

Instead all shows were either cancelled or postponed, with tickets refunded. In addition, community groups have been unable to use the space to meet up and deliver their workshops and creative sessions.

The money has come from the Arts Council England fund, which is aimed at supporting venues and theatre companies, who are not in receipt of regular portfolio funding from the Arts Council, and have been hit by the impact of the coronavirus.

Craig Sanders, Trinity Arts Centre manager, said: “We are thrilled to have been awarded this grant which means that during this period of closure will be working to support customers, refurbish the building, curate a new programme of public performances to occur when the venue is allowed to reopen, and begin to formulate an engagement project called ‘Creative Communities’ which will seek to provide a mix of digital and person to person opportunities to increase engagement with the arts and the venue.”

Coun Jessie Milne, who is a big supporter of Trinity Arts Centre, has welcomed the news.

She said: “Closing our arts centre was the right thing to do to make sure we protected our community and NHS.

“Over the last 18 months, our arts centre has gone from strength to strength, we are providing a more diverse events programme and we are seeing more and more sell out shows.

“There has been a tremendous amount of community work the centre has been involved into which now, unfortunately, can’t go ahead, such as our partnership with Shooting Fish, who engage young people to write and produce new plays.

“We do not want to forget this work once we are able to open our doors again.

“That is why this emergency grant from the Arts Council’s Covid-19 fund would be transformational as it will help to allow the venue to prepare for new operations post Covid-19.”