“It is great news that the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has awarded a £2.46m grant for the ‘Peterborough 900: Letting it speak for itself' project, which is introducing ambitious improvements to Peterborough Cathedral to mark the 900th anniversary of its founding,” said Steven Fletcher, partner at Focus Consultants.
“Focus worked with a number of specialists to develop the scheme design for the planned new Heritage, Visitor and Education Centre at Peterborough Cathedral, which is the first phase in a multi-million pound project. Other developments being planned for the future include a new Cathedral and Community Music School and improvements to the cathedral, its furnishings and its precincts.”
Focus Consultants specialises in creative approaches to securing funding packages, and has worked to help a number of significant heritage, ecclesiastical, arts, culture and leisure schemes gain grants from a range of funding sources.
It is part of the team that earlier this year secured a £3.55m grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for work on England’s second oldest cathedral, Rochester Cathedral. Focus is project manager and quantity surveyor on a project at the cathedral which is introducing new visitor displays in the crypt and library, while improving access to the atmospheric spaces and showcasing the cathedral's centrepiece manuscript: the Textus Roffensis.
Focus has also been successful in helping clients with Regional Growth Fund (RGF) bids. Engineering firm Bifrangi secured up to £4.8m of growth funding from the RGF to develop a research and development centre in Lincoln after working closely with Focus to develop the bid.
The Very Reverend Charles Taylor, Dean of Peterborough said: “This award is very good news both for Peterborough Cathedral, for the city and the wider region. It affirms our plans to make our cathedral more accessible to new visitors, not only physically but also intellectually and culturally. This can only be good for the regional life and economy. We are enormously grateful to HLF for recognising what the cathedral can offer to the community, and also to all who have supported the bid.”
Focus Consultants is based at Phoenix Business Park in Nottingham with offices in London, Leicester, Boston and Aubourn, near Lincoln.
For more information visit www.focus-consultants.co.uk
Press release issued by Perfect 10 PR www.perfect10pr.co.uk
