Vision+Media to merge with other screen agencies

VISION+Media, the support body for digital and creative industries in the North West, is to be rolled into a new national organisation called Creative England.

The agency will be merged with its northern counterparts, Screen Yorkshire and Northern Film and Media to form one of three regional hubs within the new body. The others will cover the south and central England.

The plan, unveiled by culture minister Ed Vaizey yesterday, will affect all nine of English screen agencies.

Salford-based Vision+Media had been coming to terms with the prospect of losing around half its £6m annual budget when two of its biggest supporters – the North West Development Agency (NWDA) and the UK Film Council – fold in 2012.

Chief executive Alice Morrison was contemplating selling the agency’s services outside the North West and a four-day week has already been imposed. It is not yet clear how the new plans will affect staff numbers, but more detail is expected in the New Year.

In a statement she said: “We’re pleased that the new Creative England structure has been decided, and we look forward to working with the other screen agencies to form the three hubs of Creative North, Central and South.

“We are confident that this new framework will support our local film and screen-related sectors, whilst also delivering for the wider creative industries which we have been engaged with for some time. We have already shown in the past eight years that we can generate key economic growth in our local creative sectors by providing the right businesses with targeted support.”