Fatboy Slim helps to save 'lifeblood' music venue
DJ Fatboy Slim and other investors have joined a community benefit society to purchase the freehold of The Pipeline, a music venue in Brighton. This initiative aims to protect grassroots music venues from rising rents and economic instability by securing them under community ownership.
Why it matters
It highlights a growing trend of community-led efforts to preserve cultural infrastructure against the pressures of gentrification and economic decline.
Image source, PA Media Image caption, Fatboy Slim has invested in helping to buy the home of The Pipeline in Brighton, whose building is now owned by a community benefit society
The home of a Brighton music venue is to become community owned as part of a £7m initiative backed by DJ Fatboy Slim and Andy Burnham dubbed the "National Trust of music venues".
The Pipeline in Little East Street will become the 10th site owned by Music Venue Properties (MVP), a campaign which acquires the freeholds of music venues to secure their futures.
Fatboy Slim, whose real name is Norman Cook, is among a number of people, including Burnham and Squeeze frontman Glenn Tilbrook, to invest in the charitable community benefit society.
Cook said: "I love venues like this because they remind me of when I started out, that youthful excitement and feeling about having to perform."
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