Image: A render of new designs for The Central Hall at National Railway Museum (Feilden Fowles)
The museum was the largest recipient of the Conservative’s Levelling Up funding which is now being reassessed by the new government
The National Railway Museum in York could see £15m in funding from the government withdrawn from its masterplan project, as the recent budget sees the government’s assessing Levelling Up commitments which had been made by the Conservatives.
The National Railway Museum was the largest recipient of the capital, and one of six organisations across the country with ‘Nationally Significant Projects’ that were specifically funded via the Conservative government’s Levelling Up fund.
In the previous government’s budget, £52.6m had been provisionally budgeted for six “nationally-significant cultural investments”.
The total comprised of £15m for the National Railway Museum in York, £10m for National Museums Liverpool, £5m for National Poetry Centre and £10m for British Library North in Leeds, £2.6m for V&A Dundee and £10m for Venue Cymru in Conwy, Wales.
While the funding decisions at the National Railway Museum are still to be publicly announced, V&A Dundee has already confirmed today that it will not receive its £2.6m.
The National Railway Museum did not confirm or deny the status of the funding at the time of writing.
A spokesperson for the Science Museum Group, which operates the National Railway Museum, said in a statement: “The Government is consulting with a number of public bodies that were the recipients of the Levelling Up Culture and Capital Projects funds.
“We recognise the difficult settlement faced by all Departments. We are working constructively with the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government and our Sponsor, Department for Culture Media and Sport, to outline the enormous value of this investment in boosting the local economy and creating new jobs as part of one of the largest brownfield regeneration projects in the UK, York Central.”
The £15m grant had previously been expected to fund roughly 16% of the museum’s £95m masterplan, to “extend and improve both the York museum and its sister site Locomotion in Shildon, County Durham”
Features of the museum’s masterplan include a new central building, which will act as an entrance and new gallery space.
