Galway Bay FM Newsroom - Galway City Council has presented its new Arts Strategy for the period 2021-2026.
The plan outlines a number of key infrastructure projects including the transformation of Lenaboy Castle into a dedicated creative space for children and young people.
The "New Directions" plan sets out the Local Authority's arts strategy for the next five years.
It includes a number of key infrastructure project such as the redevelopment of Lenaboy Castle, at Taylor's Hill, into a dedicated creative spaces for children and young people and the creation of an arts hub and meeting place for independent artists at the Manse in Nun's Island.
As part of the strategy, the City Council has identified three interrelated, crosscutting cultural outcomes - namely creative children, creative communities and creative city region.
To achieve these targets, the Council says it will have to change the way it works and has developed goals to steer the process.
These goals will see the Local Authority matching the work of the city's creative community against local, national and international best practice models, increasing access to the arts for people from all backgrounds, building on it's capacity and reducing its carbon footprint.
Meanwhile, the City Council says it will harness the Percent for Art Scheme, which makes provision for up to 1% of the overall cost in state funded construction projects, for public art projects.
Art's Officer James Harrold told this week's Council meeting that individual departments usually decide what percentage is allowable within the scheme and the funds generated from specifics projects typically range up to €125,000.
