THE future of Brentford's renowned Waterman's Centre was secured this week when the Government announced its assurance of a massive 46% increase in funding over the next three years.

The Art's Council was given and extra £75 million by Central Government last year to spend on local arts projects and Waterman's is to become one of the recipients.

This year the centre will receive funding of £276,760, which will rise to £315,000 for 2004/05, and then increase again to £405,000 in 2005/06. The money will be used to help fund its participative arts, new media arts and South Asian arts projects.

Jan Lennox, Director of Watermans said: Watermans is extremely pleased with the funding announcement by the Arts Council of England as it shows confidence and encouragement in what we are doing at the centre.''

She continued, The Arts Council grant is one of several grants which contribute towards the running of a large arts centre like Watermans. The expansion of programme and activities over the next three years can be planned in more detail once we know the funding levels from all our regular funders.

However, we have received a lot of feedback from the local communities during the past year since we re-opened and in response to that we would like to do more projects with children and young people and more events in the theatre.''

Ann Keen, Member of Parliament for Brentford and Isleworth also hailed the increase in funding saying, The Waterman's is a wonderful local resource. The work they do for the community and with the community is a testament to the hard work of their staff. I hope that this new money will allow them to reach even more people.''