NEW PLANS FOR MUSEUM AND STATION AT LEICESTER

Revised proposals for the Great Central Railway’s museum at Leicester North – combined with a new station building – are said to be at an “advanced planning stage”.

Designed in a more authentic style than the previous plan, dubbed ‘the Kit Kat museum’ by GCR volunteers (SR462), the new building will incorporate the museum, station and a conference/education centre in an enclosed area of 32,000 sq. ft

Such a terminus building has echoes of the ‘miniature Marylebone’ design that was originally planned for Leicester North in the 1990s – but was never built because a highpressure water main was found to run underneath the site.

The cost of the project is estimated at £7m, and the GCR states that “several routes to funding [are] provisionally agreed”. The National Lottery Heritage Fund turned down the GCR’s application for £9.5m towards the previous museum project in 2017 (SR475).

National Collection locomotives previously suggested for display in the museum were GCR ‘Improved Director’ No. 506 Butler-Henderson and LNER ‘V2’ No. 4771 Green Arrow, but the latter is now unlikely to take up residence in Leicester because it has been placed on the National Railway Museum’s list of potential operational items (SR491).