A Brighton music venue, The Pipeline, is set to become community owned after DJ Fatboy Slim invested in a £7m scheme to buy up small music venues and protect them from closure. The initiative, run by Music Venue Properties (MVP) and also backed by Andy Burnham and Squeeze's Glenn Tilbrook, has been likened to a "National Trust for music venues" because it buys venue freeholds and leases them back to operators at stable rents, shielding grassroots spaces from rising costs and unsympathetic landlords.

The Pipeline, a 60-capacity venue on Little East Street, becomes the tenth site acquired by MVP, joining venues such as The Booking Kall in Dover and The Joiners in Southampton. Fatboy Slim, real name Norman Cook, played a sold-out show there in June as part of the Everywhere at Once festival and said such rooms are "the lifeblood of the music industry". Venue operator Thomas Evrenos, who has run The Pipeline since 2017, said the deal gave him long-term security and that he might otherwise have given up had a landlord tried to raise the rent.