Plans for a new Paisley Museum which could attract hundreds of thousands of visitors to the town have progressed with details over its funding revealed.
The museum is central to Renfrewshire Council’s ambitious plans to use Paisley's bid for UK City of Culture 2021.
The budget for the museum has been reduced from £56.7m to £49m, a reduction "achieved by working with the architects to reduce the scale of the proposed building work" the council said.
The council hope the revamped town museum will triple current visitor numbers to 125,000 a year, be worth £75m to the local economy over the next 30 years and create 160 new jobs.
Renfrewshire Council is now to fund the project with £26m, up from the initial £15m.
It will make an application to the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for £10m.
A further £4m will come from "Scotland wide funding sources" as well as the UK and Scottish Governments.
The funding gap of £5m will be raised through a "major fundraising campaign" over five years.
An initial application to HLF for £15m earlier this year was unsuccessful – with the HLF advising the project needed a "greater degree of guaranteed funding to have a better chance of lottery money at a later date."
Mark Macmillan, council leader, said: "We have already made huge steps forward in recent years with our ambitious plans to use Paisley’s unique heritage assets to drive a transformation of Renfrewshire’s future.
“The proposals to revamp Paisley Museum are the signature project of that and will create a lasting legacy for the town and wider area.
“That will include major tourist footfall to the High Street, and a multi-million-pound boost to the local economy, supporting new jobs and opportunities for local people.
“The project will also retell the inspirational stories of Paisley’s heritage and Pattern by involving local people, provide an outstanding learning resource, and help change perceptions of the town at home and abroad.
“But transformation of that scale and ambition cannot be achieved without major investment and there is no option but for to the council to find its share of that.
“Major projects of this scale are rarely funded on the first ask, but the application process saw us receive some positive feedback about the ambition and viability of the project from funders.
“We also learned what we need to do to have a better chance of being funded next time – and that was to have a greater proportion of the project cost in place.
“The near-£7m reduction in cost and increased contribution from council resources will bridge that gap, while we now have a more robust fundraising strategy in place to bring in the rest of the investment needed from government and other sources."
If the funding is secured, the museum would close to the public in 2018 and fully reopen in 2022.
The proposals will be considered by members of the council’s Leadership Board on 30 November.
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