Shrewsbury Music Hall bosses are to apply for another Heritage Lottery Fund grant in a bid to find cash for the building’s £10.6 million restoration project.
Two previous bids have already been turned down but now bosses are looking into another way of seeking funding - by tapping into a regional lottery cashpot.
They are hoping to receive just over £1 million, which would be enough to get the scheme started.
In June, the project to turn the theatre into a museum to house Shropshire’s valuable artefacts lost out on £2.5 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund and £4.5 million the year before.
But now Dominic Wallis, project team manager with Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council, said another bid to the regional part of the fund would be submitted on Monday. He said a decision should be reached by December.
He said he felt the Music Hall had lost out on its previous national bid because of the need to fund the 2012 Olympics.
“They (lottery officials) have come to us again and said the way forward is that we take this to a regional committee and look at supporting the resources element of the scheme - the historical side and the education side and all the archives - so that’s what we are asking them to support now,” he said.
“We are also going to ask Advantage West Midlands to support the project. The scheme has £9 million in but it’s £10.6 million so we are short of the amount.
“It reflects how much money the Heritage Lottery Fund has to play with, given that all the money is going into London’s East End.”
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