National Lottery Heritage Fund’s latest round supports UK projects with £24m

The National Lottery Heritage Fund has announced its latest funding round, which will see £24 million allocated to projects across the UK.

Its headline funding is £5m in capital to Crystal Palace Park to advance its £52m Regeneration Plan, which will include the restoration of its Tidal Lakes, home of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs.

The park is currently on Historic England’s Heritage At Risk Register, in part due to the condition of the Dinosaurs, which have stood at the park for more than 170 years.

Funding also announced this week includes £3m for the National Science and Media Museum’s Sound and Vision project.

The £6m project will see the complete remodelling of two floors of the building, opening up unused spaces and reconfiguring the ground floor of the museum to create a new public space and enhanced visitor welcome.

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Jo Quinton-Tulloch, Director of the National Science and Media Museum, said: “We are thrilled that The National Lottery Heritage Fund has awarded us this significant investment to realise our ambition to completely transform our visitor offer both in terms of content and accessibility.”

In Penzance, the Gardeners’ House has received over £2m to create a new green community hub in West Cornwall, repurposing a historic stable block to encourage environmental education and wellbeing

The John O’Groats Mill has been allocated almost £1.6m to restore it as an “economic and social driver of the community”.

The Trinity Centre in Cardiff received £892,000 for a series of improvements to the former Trinity Methodist Church, in which work is being done to enable refugees and asylum seekers access support services, clothes and food.

The announcement follows the publication of the Heritage Fund’s ten year plan, in which it aims to invest a total £3.6 billion.

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Eilish McGuinness, Chief Executive, The National Lottery Heritage Fund, said of the Crystal Palace Park project: “In 1852, Crystal Palace Park was designed to impress, educate, entertain and inspire. Our funding will help ensure that it continues to do just that for generations to come.”