Focus Consultants celebrates Royal Transformation Project funding success

Royal Transformation Project plans

Funding experts at Focus Consultants are celebrating the news that one of the East Midlands’ key arts and entertainment centres has been successful in securing £1.5m from the Arts Council England.

The grant, along with £1.8m from Nottingham City Council, will support the £3.3m Royal Transformation Project being planned by Nottingham’s Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall.

Focus, which is based in the city, worked alongside the Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall team to create the masterplan to develop the two venues, and more recently has been the project manager, quantity surveyor and business planner for the successful Arts Council England Round 2 application.

Robert Sanderson, managing director for the venue, said: “We are so delighted in this vote of confidence from the Arts Council England and from Nottingham City Council. I would also like to thank Marsh Grochowski Architects and Focus Consultants who led the professional team, for their expertise, advice and support throughout the bid process.”

Focus, which is based at Phoenix Business Park, Nottingham, and has offices in London, Leicester, and Boston and Aubourn in Lincolnshire, specialises in creative approaches to securing funding packages and delivering high quality projects across the UK. Since its creation in 1994, Focus has helped to secure more than £953 million of grant assistance for a range of projects and businesses across the UK and delivered more than £1.3 billion of projects and programmes – making it one of the most successful companies of its kind.

Focus Partner Steven Fletcher said: “The ambitious programme of building and development works for the Royal Concert Hall and the Theatre Royal is designed to ensure the sustainable future of two of the largest arts and entertainment venues in the East Midlands, and we are very pleased to hear that the Arts Council England Round 2 bid has been successful, paving the way for phase one of the work to begin this summer.”

The Royal Transformation Project aims to increase daytime use of the venues by improving facilities and underused spaces such as meeting rooms, foyer spaces, the café bar and roof terraces.  The project will also see accessibility improvements to ensure that the new facilities can be used by everyone.

Developments include improving the building façade and streetscape on South Sherwood Street by creating a striking two-storey canopy and a new entrance way to both the Theatre Royal and the Royal Concert Hall, remodelling the Box Office and Royal Concert Hall entrance foyer, refurbishing the Royal Concert Hall foyer bars and repositioning the foyer kiosk, enlarging and improving the Theatre Royal’s ground floor café bar and upper floor roof terraces to provide a better dining experience throughout the day, and creating a new street-level outdoor seating and performance area under cover of the new canopy on South Sherwood Street.

Work will take place in two phases - phase 1 during summer and autumn 2016 and Phase 2 during summer and autumn 2017. 

Press release issued by Nottingham based pr company Perfect 10 PR http://www.perfect10pr.co.uk 

Focus Consultants appointed to help create new national attraction

Nottingham-based Focus Consultants has been selected as part of a ‘dream team’ to transform Milton Keynes Museum into a national attraction. 

The museum’s £7.3 million expansion through two major new galleries telling the area’s story from pre-history through to the present day is being made possible through funding from Milton Keynes Council, the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and Arts Council England. 

Focus, with its head office at Phoenix Business Park, Nottingham, and branches in Leicester, Holborn in London, and Boston and Aubourn in Lincolnshire, has been appointed as the project’s business planners, and joins a host of top names with wide experience of creating award-winning museums and attractions to deliver the scheme. 

“We are very pleased to be part of such a highly regarded team of planners, architects, exhibition designers and builders who will be delivering this ambitious vision for Milton Keynes Museum,” said Steven Fletcher, partner at Focus. 

“As a company, Focus has been involved in helping to develop numerous award-winning museums and exhibitions with international reputations, and our repertoire in this field includes the National Army Museum, The Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter, SeaCity in Southampton, Mshed Museum in Bristol, and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.” 

The Milton Keynes Museum could welcome more than 100,000 visitors a year once it is completed. 

Museum director Bill Griffiths said: “We have one task as a team and that is to build the best museum in the country. We don’t want to be like any other museum, but to produce something that, like the present museum, has heart and soul. 

“With such a strong team on board we believe we can make this happen: create a museum that really involves its visitors, that is memorable and exciting, that the people of Milton Keynes will feel pride in, and that will draw visitors from all over the UK.” 

Since its creation in 1994, Focus has helped to secure more than £925 million of grant assistance for a range of projects and businesses across the UK and delivered more than £1.0 billion worth of projects and programmes – making it one of the most successful businesses of its kind in the country. 

It has worked on a range of high-profile projects in the arts, heritage and tourism sector, including some of the major museums across the UK, and important historical and ecclesiastical sites.

For more details about Focus Consultants visit www.focus-consultants.com

Press release issued by Nottingham PR company Perfect 10 PR www.perfect10pr.co.uk