The UK government has announced a £270 million funding package for museums and other arts and culture venues in England.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said in a statement that hundreds of arts venues, museums, libraries and heritage buildings will receive a share of the £270m.
The cash will be given to organisations in urgent need of financial support to keep them up and running and carry out vital infrastructure work.
Funding for venues in urgent need
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said the funding “will allow the arts to continue to flourish across Britain, creating good jobs and growth by fixing the foundations in our cultural venues“.
The money includes a new £85m grant to support urgent capital works at venues across England, as well as a new round of the Museum Estate and Development Fund worth £25m.
This will allow 29 local museums up and down the country to upgrade their buildings.
A new £20m fund will help keep civic museums open and engaging, while another £15m will provide grants for repairs and conservation to heritage buildings at risk.
Also, a £120m pot will be available to 17 major cultural institutions like the British Museum and National Gallery to address essential works to their estates.
These venues will also receive a 5 percent increase in their annual budgets.
Nicholas Cullinan, director of the British Museum, said the additional cash is “a wonderful investment in the UK’s museums sector”.
£120m pot for major cultural institutions
Natural History Museum director Doug Gurr said the support for the museums sector provides “a vital lifeline to ensure we continue to reach and inspire audiences locally, nationally, globally”.
Ian Blatchford, director of the Science Museum Group, said: “We are delighted with the government’s continued strong support for national museums and the wider cultural sector.”
Maria Balshaw, Tate director, said the investments are “urgently needed right across the museum sector for maintenance and repairs”.
