National Lottery Heritage Fund launches £50m coronavirus fund

The National Lottery Heritage Fund will create a £50m fund to support the heritage sector as an immediate response to the coronavirus outbreak.  

The UK-wide fund, with money raised from The National Lottery. will address immediate pressures over the next three-six months for those organisations most in need. It will be open for applications within the next few days.

Grants of between £3,000 and £50,000 will be made available.

It is available to organisations across the full breadth of heritage, including historic sites, industrial and maritime heritage, museums, libraries and archives, parks and gardens, landscapes and nature.

Organisations which have received funding in the past or are either a current grantee, or still under contract following a previous grant, can apply.

Priority will be given where:

• there is limited or no access to other sources of support
• where heritage is most at risk
• where an organisation is at risk of severe financial crisis due to COVID-19

Eilish McGuinness, The National Lottery Heritage Fund executive director, business delivery, said:  ‘We know that circumstances are incredibly challenging for our heritage community right now and we want to do everything we can to support them. We hope this new fund will be a lifeline and a beacon of hope for organisations affected.

‘Heritage has an essential role to play in making communities better places to live, creating economic prosperity and supporting personal wellbeing. All of these are going to be vitally important as we emerge from this current crisis.’

Heritage Minister Nigel Huddleston added: ‘It is important that we do all we can to ensure our nation’s remarkable heritage landscapes, buildings and monuments – and the hardworking organisations that protect them – are supported at this difficult time.

‘Heritage plays an important role in our communities by supporting jobs and economic growth as well as helping us to understand our shared past. This new £50m package from the National Lottery Heritage Fund will help to protect our most at risk heritage throughout this unprecedented period.’

Photo Credit – Thomas Barrett