Dame Caroline Dinenage, MP for Gosport, is encouraging museums and galleries across the local area to bid for the £4 million in new funding to the Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund to level up access to arts and culture.
Gosport has benefitted from other tranches of the Cultural Recovery Fund, with Gosport Diving Museum recently benefitting from £100,000 through the Museum Estate and Development Fund.
This newest cash boost will support the improvement of displays, protect collections, and make museums and galleries more accessible to visitors–helping to level up people’s opportunities to participate in and enjoy our culture across the country.
The Wolfson Foundation and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport are contributing extra funding to mark 20 years of the two organisations supporting arts and cultural organisations.
Over the last 20 years the Museum and Galleries Improvement Fund has support 415 projects with £48 million in 350 museums in the UK.
Museums and galleries benefitting from the Fund’s investments have improved access for communities to their local history. Funding awarded has helped to increase opening hours and visitor numbers, so that more people can visit their collections and enjoy our national heritage.
Over 80 per cent of the funding provided in the last round of awards went to organisations in the regions, including in Yorkshire, Carlisle, Manchester, and Norwich.
The Conservative Government is delivering on its commitment set out in its Levelling Up White Paper to increase cultural spending outside the capital to widen access and boost cultural opportunities.
Commenting, Caroline said:
“We are lucky to have an abundance of great museums and cultural sites on our doorstep, including the Submarine Museum, Explosion! and the 17th Century Village.
“The Government’s extra funding, building on the £48 million that has already support 415 projects, is a welcome opportunity to widen access to the wonderful and historic collections in our museums and galleries and I urge organisations across Gosport, Lee on the Solent, Stubbington and Hill Head to apply.
“This Conservative Government is levelling up culture across the nation – opening the doors to our museums and galleries so that wherever people live they can be proud of our shared history.”
Commenting, Arts Minister Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay said:
“This is a brilliant example of what can be achieved when public funding and private philanthropy come together and I encourage organisations to apply so we can support more museums and galleries to level up people’s access to culture.”
