Earlier this month, the Arts Council announced its funding decisions for its 2023-2026 Investment Programme. This is the money given to its national portfolio organisations – out of 1700 applications, 990 groupings were given a pot of £446 million between them.

As with any funding round of this sort, there were winners and losers in the process. Part of the Arts Council’s strategy, as directed by the previous Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, was to shift funding away from London and towards the regions.

That has led to some high-profile names losing their funding: the Donmar Warehouse, which first blossomed under Sam Mendes’ artistic directorship in the 1990s; and the English National Opera, which instead of its regular funding was offered £17 million to relocate outside the capital.

Its chief executive Stuart Murphy described the decision as a ‘howling mistake’: Melvyn Bragg accused the Arts Council’s choices as ‘cultural vandalism’.

Closer to home, the funding picture is more mixed. In Newbury, the Watermill Theatre is another grouping to have lost its funding.

Across Wiltshire, seven organisations were successful in receiving £2.2 million a year: the fact that two of these groups are in the constituency of the new Culture Secretary, Michelle Donelan, is, I’m sure, pure coincidence.

The Hampshire Cultural Trust, meanwhile, received £500,000 a year, charged with a focus on three of the Arts Council’s priority list of underrepresented areas: Gosport, Rushmoor and the New Forest.

I don’t often say this, but I partly agree with Nadine Dorries here. Making the arts less London-centric and supporting organisations out of the capital is a laudable aim. And for all the articles in the (London-based) media, the south-west still got less than a quarter of what London did.

In fact, the £37 million allocated here is the lowest in the country: for all the brilliant arts practitioners we play host to, the south-west remains the poor relation when it comes to government support. Next time, perhaps the Arts Council could level sideways, as well as up?

Without coming across all Liz Trussian (remember her?) what is needed here is not a reslicing of the current cake, but funding the ingredients to bake a bigger one. Even those groups successful in winning Arts Council funding are struggling.

The Arc in Winchester, run by Hampshire Cultural Trust, has been criticised for increasing rates for community groups to unaffordable levels. Salisbury Arts Centre, owned by Wiltshire Creative, has been forced to close its popular café, suspending classes and art exhibitions.

Art classes and poetry groups might not sound like much, but it’s from small, accessible beginnings that local creativity can flourish.

Yes, times might be hard. But that’s precisely when we need more arts, not less.