The museum and art gallery closed on Terrace Road due to structural concerns in the building in 2023, with staff setting up at Buxton Library on Kents Bank Road following the huge task of moving from their former home.
An interim service has been in place since then, which has included events and displays, and travelling pop-ups, as well as continuing to boost the museum’s presence online.
This week it has been confirmed that the museum and art gallery has been successful in securing funding from 2 Arts Council England pots, with £72,000 from the Museum Renewal Fund and a further £5,000 from Museum Development Midlands/Arts Council England’s On Display! Collections Grant Scheme.
The money is to be used to support moving the interim service into a larger, self-contained, dedicated space on the Kents Bank Road site, giving more room for displays, exhibitions and events, and making it more accessible for visitors to view collections. It will also be spent on new lighting controls, retrieving and installing stored displays and interactives, an alarm system and decoration. Some funding will go towards extra staff costs, running public events and development of the longer-term plan to create a permanent venue for the museum and art gallery, with a view to this being part of the Rebooting Buxton development programme.
Staff will also be able to reopen the museum shop in the new space to help generate much-needed revenue, and it is hoped that the new space will be opened to visitors before this Christmas.
Cabinet Member for Health and Communities Councillor Dawn Abbott said:
“This is fantastic news for our museum service and we are grateful to Arts Council England for recognising the worth of Buxton Museum and Art Gallery and being confident in us to use the funding wisely and to best effect.
“We are continuing to work with partners to secure a new permanent home in the heart of the town for the museum, art gallery and the library, but in the meantime we are working hard to ensure we can offer the best that we can to the people of Buxton and its visitors.
“This move will be extremely positive and I look forward to being able to go along when it opens before Christmas.”
The Museum Renewal Fund, delivered by Arts Council England on behalf of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, supports museums in stabilising their financial situation and building towards sustainable and thriving futures. Find out more about the Museum Renewal Fund.