The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has granted £14m (US$20m, €18.3m) in its latest funding round, with millions of pounds being split between a number of heritage projects across the UK.
One of the most significant investments goes to Portsmouth’s D-Day Museum, which will close for around a year starting October 2016, while new displays and galleries are installed.
Rebranded the ‘International Museum of D-Day’, the £4m (US$5.7m, €5.25m) investment from the HLF will go towards £4.9m (US$7m, €6.4m) redevelopment costs, which will be completed ahead of the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings in 2019.
In Lincolnshire, the HLF has awarded Round 2 funding of £3m (US$4.3m, €3.9m) for an exhibition, community engagement and education programme for the International Bomber Command Centre (IBCC), which is scheduled to open in 2017.
The Lincolnshire Bomber Command Memorial Trust (LBCM) is still seeking a further £3.8m (US$5.4m, €5m) to fund the development. The grant will also help create an archive that digitises and preserves personal stories and documents including the recollections of some of the remaining survivors of the campaigns, much of which has never been available for public consumption.
In Northern Ireland the HLF has granted £1.98m (US$2.8m, €2.6m) for the regeneration of the historic city of Armagh – part of a larger scheme which has seen £21m (US$30m, €27.5m) worth of investment over the course of the last 21 years.
The five-year plan will see up to 30 buildings within Armagh restored in the city’s conservation area, while 3,000sq m (32,200sq ft) of historic floor space will be brought back to sustainable use. The investment will also create five new businesses, creating 20 jobs in the process.
Finally, three Victorian towns on the British coast will share £4.7m (US$6.7m, €6.2m) as part of a larger £14m (US$20m, €18.4m) pot to go towards building renovations, job creation and training, and securing their long-term futures as tourist destinations.
The towns of Cleethorpes in Lincolnshire, Rothesay on Scotland’s Isle of Bute and St Austell in Cornwall will share the sum, part of the Townscape Heritage Scheme, which will provide a boost for local economies and create more than 2,000 training places.
In Cleethorpes, funding will go towards preservation of the town’s distinctive architecture on two important streets connecting the town and the seafront, while in Rothesay, the grant will help revitalise some of the properties near the ferry arrival point, including the historic Winter Gardens, buildings on the main seafront road and parts of the West Pier. Finally the St Austell project will rejuvenate the town centre by improving historic buildings and public areas, which in turn will create opportunities to deliver skills training to local people.
