KIRKGATE ARTS

Registered charity 1126602 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register

Kirkgate Arts celebrates the arts and the creativity, culture and heritage of the communities of Cockermouth and the wider region of West Cumbria. At our venue, the Kirkgate Centre, we bring audiences, participants and diverse professional artists together and provide facilities and support to a wide range of other creative artists, community activities and businesses,

Objects

TO PROVIDE A FACILITY FOR THE PROVISION AND ENJOYMENT OF THE ARTS, CULTURE AND HERITAGE.TO PROVIDE OR ASSIST IN THE PROVISION OF FACILITIES FOR EDUCATION AND LEISURE ACTIVITIES.TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF LIFE OF THE INHABITANTS OF COCKERMOUTH AND THE SURROUNDING DISTRICTS BY THE DELIVERY OF (A) AND (B) ABOVE

Area of benefit: COCKERMOUTH

The charity’s charitable objects and area of benefit, quoted from its governing document as held on the Charity Commission register.

Causes: Education/training · Arts/culture/heritage/science · Environment/conservation/heritage · Economic/community Development/employment · Recreation · Other Charitable Purposes · website · Get email alerts

Registered contact address: Cumberland, North West, England (from the postcode on the register)

Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts

The accounts state that the charity ended the year with a net surplus of £250,016 and total funds of £608,070. The trustees consider the charity adequately funded and confident in its going concern status, with unrestricted reserves of £217,309 significantly exceeding the stated policy target of £50,000.

Automated summary of the FY2025 accounts; the evidenced findings below carry the verbatim passages.

What the accounts disclose

Accounts independently examined (not a full audit). Discloses 5 of 6 completeness components.

Policies the charity declares

In its annual return the charity told the Commission that it has the policies listed below. This is self-declared: it is not verified by the Commission or by this site, and it is not evidence of how a policy works in practice.

• Bullying and harassment policy and procedures
• Campaigns and political activity policy and procedures
• Complaints handling
• Complaints policy and procedures
• Conflicting interests
• Engaging external speakers at charity events policy and procedures
• Financial reserves policy and procedures
• Internal charity financial controls policy and procedures
• Internal risk management policy and procedures
• Investing charity funds policy and procedures
• Paying staff
• Safeguarding policy and procedures
• Safeguarding vulnerable beneficiaries
• Serious incident reporting policy and procedures
• Social media policy and procedures
• Trustee conflicts of interest policy and procedures
• Trustee expenses policy and procedures
• Volunteer management

From the charity’s annual return (Part A, self-declared)

Answers and figures the charity gave in Part A of its annual return to the Charity Commission. They are self-declared: not verified by the Commission or by this site. Only positive answers and figures are listed; items not listed are simply not shown.

Source: this charity’s annual returns on the Charity Commission register.

Annual return filing dates (Charity Commission record)

Of its last 5 annual returns with a recorded received date, 2 were received after the due date: year ending 31/03/2023 (received 08/04/2024, 68 days after the 31/01/2024 due date); year ending 31/03/2021 (received 24/03/2022, 52 days after the 31/01/2022 due date).

Due and received dates as recorded in the Commission’s annual-return data; the data does not say whether an extension was agreed. Source: this charity’s annual returns on the Charity Commission register.

Funders the charity credits

Named as funders/supporters on the charity’s own website (the charity’s claim, distinct from accounts-verified grants).

• Benny Walker Foundation — “Enormous thanks to Benny Walker Foundation, for getting us well underway with funding the project to finish all the windows, without their g…” (source page)

Property (HM Land Registry)

3 registered titles in England and Wales held by the charity’s company or corporate body (3 freehold); recorded price paid £3k. All charity-held property. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright, OGL v3.0.

Public profiles (found on the charity’s own website): facebook · instagram

Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 31/03/2025)

Reported reserves equal ~21.0 months of spending — in the top quarter for charities its size (median 5.2 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, largest income source: Other (72% of income) — components as reported reconcile to the return’s total income; not from the accounts narrative.

Per its annual return, cost of raising funds: 1.4% of total income — below the median for charities its size (4.9%) (benchmarks).

Trustees · trustee networks

• Christine Slater
• Hannah Kozich
• John Reynolds
• Michael Billinghurst
• Nichola Nelson-Jones
• Rebecca Claire Skinner
• Robert Higgins
• Sue Cliff
• Susan Moses

Trustee list from the Charity Commission register (current, not historical).

Operates in: Cumbria

Income and spending

Common questions

Known funders

Grants to this charity found in funders’ own accounts filings.

Grants marked “Unverified read” were flagged by automated checks as possibly misread from the funder’s filed accounts. They are listed, but left out of the totals, counts and funder relationships this site computes.

Government & lottery funding

Grants to this charity published as open data by government and lottery funders (360Giving).

Funders of similar charities

Funders whose accounts show grants to charities similar to this one (and no recorded grant to this charity) — a starting list for fundraisers.

Charities like this

Semantically similar by activities and financial character, from our analysed corpus. Compare with Kirkgate Community Centre.

• Kirkgate Community Centre income £132k
• DARTFORD ARTS CENTRE income £645k
• KINGSGATE WORKSHOPS TRUST income £349k
• THE ARTS SOCIETY, CORINIUM income £53k
• ARTS GATEWAY MK income £202k
• CULTURE WARRINGTON income £4.5m

Side by side with its peers

Each row is that charity’s latest analysed filing; every value is quote-backed on its own page.