Funding crisis
The rejection of a £13 million National Railway Museum bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund is another hammer blow to York’s attempts to redevelop the Great Hall. Seven years ago, the NRM was unable to generate the necessary match-funding from the Regional Growth Fund that would have, potentially, unlocked around half of the £21m needed to deliver its NRM+ vision from the lottery. That project was swiftly axed by then museum director Steve Davies, with no viable source of grant aid within reach. In 2015, plans for the NRM+ successor – the Masterplan – were tentatively unveiled. We’ve since learned that a Science Museuminspired ‘Wonderlab’ gallery will feature. That too has failed to garner HLF support – another obstacle in the path of various endeavours that go back more than a decade. The HLF is decidedly impartial in its postrejection rhetoric of the Masterplan. Yet the reality is that, for reasons undisclosed, the lottery did not consider the NRM bid to be a sufficiently strong contender to overcome the Stage 1 hurdle. One of the bids that did succeed is Swansea’s Transporter Bridge. The last few months have not been a happy time in the NRM’s association with the HLF. In December, the lottery withdrew from the ‘Main Line – Bridging the Nation’ museum project at Leicester North, which is (or was) due to become home for a dozen NRM rolling stock exhibits. It’s missed out on a total of £22.5m, leaving a gaping financial chasm. And that will have as yet unknown consequences for the National Collection, which has already been pared down through the disposals of locomotives, carriages and wagons in recent years. This is also a time of major concern for the HLF and those that need its support. Sales in lottery tickets have plummeted, meaning that there will be no grants of more than £5m in 2019 as HLF commitments threaten to be overwhelmed by this negative trend over the next decade. That’s the forecast from no less a body than the National Audit Office. Clearly this looming crisis could also have implications for the rest of preservation, which has relied heavily on lottery support for projects concerning locomotives, carriages, workshops and extensions. Preservation will almost certainly have to find new and imaginative ways in which to reduce its dependency on grant-giving organisations, upon which it has heavily relied for the past quarter-century. Even if major HLF grant opportunities were to return in 2020 (which is by no means certain), the NRM itself wouldn’t realistically be in a position to unlock the necessary cash until around spring 2021 – the same year as its planned reopening of the Great Hall. Indeed, the recent rejection casts a shadow of doubt over plans to start work on the overhaul this summer. Plenty of ifs and few certainties. The NRM’s response suggests that
another time-consuming HLF application won’t be submitted, and that alternative money sources will have to be found if it is to still deliver the full £50m redevelopment of the York site. Even still, with the impending cessation of European funding to coincide with the county’s departure from the European Union in spring 2019, and with no clear evidence of what grants will be available in their place, there hasn’t been a more uncertain time to attempt big projects such as this since the Government siphoned off billions of pounds of big ticket funding to help deliver the 2012 Olympics. The overarching master of the NRM and the Science Museum Group, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, is also making life difficult for York, as another year of flatlined funding passes and the combined effects of swingeing cuts still undermine the foundations at York, a decade on from the last recession. And as the museum’s deadline for reopening looms, the Great Hall continues to stagnate. With every setback, the urgency to properly showcase this vital collection increases. If current plans for the Great Hall don’t win a vote of confidence from potential funding partners then there will be no other option than to have a radical rethink of how the museum can be best developed within its means. One hopes, whatever the outcome, that it can recapture the attraction of York’s 1975 opening, when it was packed to the gunwales with a galaxy of railway stars – a true emblem of Britain’s amazing gift to the world.
FOR REASONS UNDISCLOSED, THE LOTTERY DID NOT CONSIDER THE NRM BID TO BE A SUFFICIENTLY STRONG CONTENDER TO OVERCOME THE STAGE 1 HURDLE”