FEARS that Aberdeen City Council could axe support for a £10 million contemporary art centre saw staff produce a letter of support from the Scottish Arts Council, highlighting its "strategic importance" to Scotland.
But amid rising tensions over sweeping cuts expected in Aberdeen, the SAC insisted the letter from its visual arts director had not actually been sent.
The city council is reportedly considering cuts of £50 million on its budget of £417 million.
Peacock Visual Arts is the driving force behind the centre, being promoted as a cultural hub for the region.
So far it has won £4.3 million in lottery funding from the arts council, £2 million from Scottish Enterprise Grampian, and £250,000 in EU funding. The city council's promised contribution is £3 million.
With talk of up to 2,000 job losses, school mergers and charity funding being slashed as the city tightens spending, Elly Rothnie, Peacock's campaign director, issued the arts council letter yesterday ahead of a critical budget meeting on Friday.
In it, Iain Munro, the SAC's head of visual arts, was quoted as telling Aberdeen leader Kate Dean of the arts council's backing for the Northern Light centre as "one of the most exciting and inspiring cultural projects in Scotland" and underlining "our continuing strong support".
He wrote: "I therefore hope this unique opportunity to deliver a world-class facility in Aberdeen will also be recognised and seized by the other funding partners."
In a press release Ms Rothnie called it a "passionate plea" on the centre's behalf. "We are delighted to have the arts council's support on this."
The letter warned that delay from the city council could result in Aberdeen losing out on £7 million of national funding, and a facility that would attract more than 200,000 people a year.
An Aberdeen council spokesman said he could not comment in advance of Friday's meeting of the budget monitoring board.
Deputy leader Kevin Stewart said: "Other members of the board and myself have to balance what is best value for this city at this moment in time."
An SAC spokeswoman said the letter had been sent in draft form to Peacock's director, Lindsay Gordon, and not Aberdeen council itself. She said: "While we are very pleased to support an outstanding cultural project, it wasn't intended as wider distribution nor was it intended as backing for a wider campaign."
Ms Rothnie later said there was "a breakdown of communications".
The full article contains 420 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
