Council committed to Heaton Hall Restoration

Council committed to Heaton Hall Restoration

Published Thursday 18th June 09

Manchester City Council has pledged that it will continue its search for funding for the restoration of Heaton Hall after a bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund was not successful.

The bid was submitted to the Heritage Lottery Fund in December and was considered by the Trustees at their meeting last month. After careful consideration, it was decided that the Fund was unable to support the project. Carole Souter, Chief Executive of the Heritage Lottery Fund, said:

"We recognise how important Heaton Hall is to both Manchester's heritage and the local community and were impressed with the Council's initial plans to restore it and open it up more widely. However, this was a highly competitive round of decision-making and, sadly, we just didn't have enough money to support all the excellent applications we looked at on the day."

The City will resubmit a revised, phased scheme to the HLF early next year.

Councillor Mike Amesbury, Executive Member for Culture and Leisure at Manchester City Council said: "We are very disappointed by this news because we worked closely with the Heritage Lottery Fund on previous improvements to the park and submitted a very strong bid for funding for this all-important final stage of restoration. It is also a blow for those who worked so hard on the bid to restore this beautiful Hall, including the local community groups who love the Hall and who worked to help put the bid together but it does not change the City Council's commitment to its restoration. We have work to do on a new bid and know that we can count on the support of the Hall and Park's supporters to help make it a success."

The £9.4m project put to the HLF would have started to restore the Grade 1 listed 18th century building to its former glory and introduced a series of activities and educational programmes to bring the house into the heart of the community.

The Hall was designed by James Wyatt for Thomas Grey, 15th Baron Grey de Wilton in 1772, and has been described by the architect Pevsner as 'one of the finest neo-classical 18th century buildings in the north of England, if not the whole country'.

Background

• To date, HLF has made 248 awards in Manchester totalling £93million.
• Manchester City Council has benefited from HLF grants totalling £32million, including £8.6million for Heaton Park.

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