GRANT APPLICATION REFUSED

The museum’s current financial situation was not helped when their application for a grant from the ‘Culture Recovery Fund’ was refused. Museum Director James Hewing explained the situation: “We applied for a grant from the fund, which was established by government to ‘provide funding support to organisations across the heritage ecosystem that were financially sustainable before Covid-19.’

“In late October we received an email from the Heritage Lottery Fund (who are partly responsible for administering the scheme) that our application, ‘did not meet the criteria for the programme, and the board has decided not to award a grant through the Culture Recovery Fund for Heritage’.”

The National Motorcycle Museum is regarded as the largest British motorcycle museum in the world, with the collection boasting some 1000 machines covering 170 marques, and in normal times attracts 250,000 visitors per year. So quite why the museum didn’t meet the criteria is unclear, as there are several other transport museums among the hundreds of successful applicants for grants. Unsuccessful applicants have no right for recourse.

“The news was a bitter blow,” admits Hewing. “We had applied for funding in the under £1 million category in order to help retain all of our expert team of people, as well as preserving the museum collection of British motorcycles as the largest in the world.”