Focus Consultants helps secure £2.46m Heritage Lottery Fund grant for Peterborough Cathedral

Heritage and funding experts at Focus Consultants are celebrating the news that Peterborough Cathedral has been awarded a £2.46m grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).

Nottingham-based Focus Consultants was appointed to assist the management of the second-round bid to the HLF. News of its success means that Focus has now helped to secure more than £925m of grant assistance for a range of projects and businesses across the UK since 1994.

“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

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Major Peterborough Cathedral role for Focus Consultants

Focus Consultants has been appointed as part of the team introducing ambitious improvements at Peterborough Cathedral to mark the 900th anniversary of its founding.

Heritage and funding experts at Focus have been chosen to project manage a second-round bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for a grant to take the project forward.

Now Focus is working with a number of specialists to develop the scheme design for the planned new Heritage 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.

It is the second cathedral contract won by Focus recently, and follows the firm’s appointment as buildings project manager and quantity surveyors on a £3 million project to conserve and repair England’s second oldest cathedral, Rochester.

“We are very pleased to be working with Peterborough Cathedral and its wider community on this special project to celebrate the 900th anniversary of the cathedral’s founding,” said Focus project manager Ellie Clarke.

“The vision is for the cathedral to be a place of worship, education and music, encompassing all aspects of an ever-growing and changing society, and Focus is proud to be playing a key role in helping the achievement of these aims.”

Focus Consultants, which is based in Nottingham with offices in London, Leicester, Boston and Lincoln, is spearheading the development of the new Heritage and Education Centre, which involves refurbishing the Grade 1 listed Knights’ Chamber.

The £3 million development is part of a £10 million campaign of improvements at the cathedral, which, in 2018, will mark the 900th anniversary of the foundation of the present cathedral building.

The plans received a first-round pass from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) earlier this year, with the second-round capital bid being prepared for submission in the New Year.

Focus Consultants specialises in creative approaches to securing funding packages and delivering high quality projects across the Midlands and the UK.

Focus has secured more than £800 million of grant assistance, and delivered more than £1 billion of projects and programmes since 1994.

It has worked on a number of heritage and ecclesiastical developments including Lincoln Cathedral Old Palace, St. Margaret’s in Bradford, Nottingham’s St. Martha’s the Housewife and Greyfriars Tower, King’s Lynn.

www.focus-consultants.co.uk

Issued by Nottingham PR company Perfect 10 PR www.perfect10pr.co.uk