Coventry City of Culture Trust calls in administrators

The trust set up to run legacy projects following Coventry's year as UK City of Culture in 2021 has gone into administration.

The board of trustees said on Tuesday the trust had failed to find solutions to its financial challenges.

The Coventry City of Culture Trust is supposed to oversee a three-year programme of projects, but had to ask the council for a £1m loan in 2022.

It said it regretted administration's impact on staff and partners.

It also said it had worked to try to protect legacy funding "for the city and its cultural organisations".

Although the trust had "come to an end earlier than anticipated", a statement added, the trustees said they believed "Coventry's year as UK City of Culture has had a huge impact on the city and its positive influence will be felt for many, many years to come".

It emerged at the start of February the trust was in discussion with administrators, having cited financial difficulty.

Councillors have been briefed the £1m loan is unlikely to be repaid.

The University of Warwick confirmed its representative had walked away, with the institution saying: "We did not support additional public money being used to keep the charitable trust going and ended our membership of the board and the audit committee as a result."

Up to 10 people have left their positions as directors of the trust in the past 12 months, according to Companies House records. There are currently eight board members in place, with none from the council.

The trust said last week that despite the situation, it continued to work with partners on a variety of initiatives, and the city's tenure as City of Culture had attracted millions of pounds in investment.