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.
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