Durham Pride saved by trade unions after Reform UK council cut funding

Trade unions have banded together to save Durham Pride after the city’s Reform UK council cut its funding last year.

In August 2025, Durham County Council’s deputy leader, Darren Grimes, slammed the planned Pride event, stating that the funding will instead be diverted to services that aren’t “contested causes”.

Durham Pride has been running since 2014, and has been growing ever since. The event welcomed 20,000 people to its county-wide celebrations in 2023.

The council invested up to £10,000 in last year’s event, which attracted several thousand attendees. However, the Reform administration still withdrew its support ahead of the 2026 celebrations.

At the time, Councillor Grimes said, as reported by Northern Echo: “Durham Pride won’t be getting a single penny from this council next year.”

Grimes added of the event’s agenda: “Pride stopped being a celebration of gay rights a long time ago. It’s morphed into a travelling billboard for gender ideology and political activism that many in the gay community – myself included – want no part of. Taxpayers shouldn’t be bankrolling it.”

He went on to explain that the event could go ahead, but clarified that Durham County Council “isn’t an ATM for contested causes”.

“Our residents deserve bins emptied, roads fixed, and services funded – not more council-sponsored politics in fancy dress,” he continued. Grimes concluded that Reform would spend its budgets on “the services everyone relies on, not on flying the latest alphabet flag for the professional offence industry”.

Following the decision, trade unions in the county came together to raise money and ensure Durham Pride 2026 could go ahead despite the financial setback. Fundraising efforts were a huge success, and brought in more money than was originally cut from the council’s budget.

British trade union Equity was one of the biggest patrons, having donated £7,200 to the cause.

While presenting the donation, Equity President Lynda Rooke said: “Equity – your union – will not allow a Pride event that brings work for our members and celebrates our performers to die. And I am proud to announce that Equity has stepped up.”

She continued: “What’s even better is that this new agreement signed between Durham Pride and Equity will ensure decent standards for all our members and our workers. We are sending a message to Reform and any other group that is planning on attacking the cultural sector, which is: we see you, we will fight you, and we will succeed.”

Mel Metcalf, organiser of Durham Pride, said of the donation: “I just wanted to say thank you so much. I don’t think you realise how much this really means to a small charity like ours.”

Metcalf continued: “It’s our 15th year [of Durham Pride] and what we’ve learned is that nobody can stop Pride. They said Pride won’t happen, Pride is finished, Pride is done. But they don’t control Pride, we do. So show up for Pride and get the banners out!”

This year’s Durham Pride will take place on 30 May.

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