Delays to LDA report leaves questions over LDF funding

The London Development Agency is to further delay the publication of its full-scale economic evaluation into the London Design Festival until next month.

Despite the report having been prepared and delivered to the LDA by management consultancy Strategem as early as December 2006, the regional development agency has yet to make the findings public.

Until the report is published, it will not be known if this year’s event can go ahead with the financial backing it has enjoyed until now. The LDA has made it clear, however, that its funding would be phased down and that the festival would need to find its own sources of future finance.

Strategem began its audit into the economic viability of the event in September 2006, at the time of the last London Design Festival. It was commissioned by the LDA, the festival’s key financier.

At the time of the audit, a number of alternative proposals for new design events were put forward as possible beneficiaries of the LDA’s funding. However, if unofficial reports are correct, these bids are understood to have been unsuccessful.

Since its inception in 2003, the event has been run by John Sorrell, Ben Evans and William Knight through their company London Design Festival Limited.

This year’s festival will take place between 15-30 September.