Three Coventry heritage and cultural organisations have benefited from the government’s £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund to help them through the coronavirus pandemic.
The three organisations in Coventry are amongst 445 heritage organisations in England have been awarded cash from the first round of the Culture Recovery Fund for Heritage, sharing a total of £103 million.
Grants of up to £1 million are available to give a lifeline for the heritage sector in England. The funding is administered at arms-length by Historic England and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Two Tone Central, the Coventry Music Museum, is to receive a £15,800 grant to help the museum through this difficult time as visitor number have dropped to an all-time low. The grant will help cover part of the £20,000 a year that it costs to keep the museum open. The museum has recently attained its “We’re good to Go” Covid-19 complaint rating and is open to the public by appointment. Telephone 07971171441 to book an appointment.
MotoFest Coventry has been awarded a grant of £44,500 to enable it to organise a Covid-safe festival in 2021, following the postponement of the 2020 festival.
MotoFest Coventry was founded in 2014 and has run annually until the hiatus caused by the Covid 19 pandemic. In 2019, MotoFest had a footfall of 229,000 individuals over the two day festival weekend, making it one of the largest and most important automotive events in the country.
MotoFest celebrates Coventry’s influence worldwide, past, present and future, on two wheels and four. The weekend long festival mixes live motorsport with heritage vehicle displays, music, food and film. The festival will run from 4-6 June 2021.
The third organisation to receive funding is the Historic Coventry Trust which has been awarded £170,700. The grant is to help the Trust with core staff costs, consultancies, and to support Covid-related extra costs at Drapers Hall and the Burges. This will help them get through the coronavirus pandemic and to continue urgent repair and restoration work.
