'Museum Mile' bid for £25m is rejected by Lottery

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A £25 million bid to transform Exhibition Road, home to some of London's finest museums, into a world-class tourist attraction has been denied Lottery funding.

The Serpentine Gallery, the V&A, the Science Museum and the National History Museum hoped the Big Lottery Fund would back the plans to create the equivalent of New York's "Museum Mile".

But the Exhibition Road project, which was supported by Ken Livingstone, did not make the Fund's shortlist on the grounds it was too heavily focused on road enhancements.

Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea councils, which put forward the plans as they are each responsible for one side of the street, will now have to apply for funding to the Government and Transport for London.

Some sources suggest that Westminster may be responsible for the bid's rejection because it failed to enthusiastically support and promote the scheme, which it was hoped could be finished before the 2012 Olympic Games.

Mark Jones, director of the V&A, said he was disappointed the bid was turned down. "The project was recommended to get through and I have no idea why it was rejected," he said.

"At least 10 million people a year visit Exhibition Road and their experience is really poor. There is no sense that it is a welcoming place or of connection between the V&A, the National History and the Science Museum. London has been transformed for the better but not this part. It's still like it was in the Fifties."

The plans included partial pedestrianisation, which supporters said would make the road more attractive and so significantly increase the number of visitors.

Admissions to the museums have soared since the Government scrapped admission charges five years ago but Mr Jones said: "The centre of gravity of the city has moved to the east and maybe South Kensington is a little high and dry."

He said the project had the potential to make Exhibition Road more of an attraction than even Museum Mile, the stretch of New York's Fifth Avenue that includes the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Guggenheim Museum.

" This is a really interesting scheme," added Mr Jones. "A total of £25million isn't a lot of money when it comes to these things."

Merrick Cockell, leader of Kensington and Chelsea, said a £5million bid was to be made to the Heritage Lottery Fund to revamp the pedestrian tunnel linking South Kensington Tube station and Exhibition Road but otherwise the council had given up on lottery funding.

"I think they [the Big Lottery Fund] saw it as an environ-mental improvement project but it's as much driven by cultural considerations," he said. "Just like what the East End will do for sport (post-2012), central London can do for culture."

He said the council was in discussion with the Department of Culture and would make representations to the Treasury, the Department for the Environment, TfL and the Mayor.

Serpentine director Julia Peyton-Jones said the bid's rejection was "a blip". She continued: "In every great project there are highs and lows and there is still everything to play for.

"The project enhances cultural institutions in the area and there is an absolute imperative that it is done."

Last year, the Exhibition Road Cultural Group united 13 institutions in an attempt to create west London's equivalent of the South Bank.

 

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