New attempts are being made to secure a £2.5m repair grant for the Scottish Mining Museum. The museum, which is based at the Grade A-listed Lady Victoria Colliery at Newtongrange, near Edinburgh, needs routine, but urgent, repair work on its buildings.
The site is among the finest surviving Victorian collieries in Europe and faces the closure of some buildings, including those housing its Big Stuff machinery tour, which opened only two years ago, if repairs are not carried out.
Labour MSP Rhona Brankin tabled a motion last month in the Scottish parliament calling for funds to be made available urgently.
"These are, in my view, some of the finest colliery buildings left in the world and they are in danger of having to be demolished because they are becoming unsafe," she said.
Brankin, the former culture minister in whose constituency the museum is located, asked the Scottish Executive in April for a £3m capital investment programme, which she claimed was promised under the previous Labour administration.
The SNP's Scottish culture minister, Linda Fabiani, said there had been no promise of funds made under Labour. But in a written response to a question posed in parliament, Fabiani said: "The Scottish government will consider capital investment in the national industrial museums on the basis of a detailed business case and, in the case of the mining museum, after a review of the technical details by Historic Scotland."
The lobby for Scotland's industrial museums, including the Scottish Maritime Museum and the Scottish Fisheries Museum, to receive capital funding has been long-standing. All receive revenue grants from the Scottish Executive, and from this month, the money is to be directed through Museums Galleries Scotland.
Fabiani said the government had recently promised £60,000 to the Scottish Maritime Museum for office accommodation and would offer the mining museum £25,000 for immediate repairs.
Scottish Mining Museum director Fergus Waters said the £25,000 was to repair a retaining wall that was dangerous. But he added that the £2.5m was urgently needed to stabilise the building.
Waters said he was unsure how long the museum could continue functioning at full capacity if the money was not forthcoming. "It is nothing that can't be fixed," he said. "It is literally mending the roof and walls. We are not asking for an all-singing, all-dancing interpretation centre."
The site is among the finest surviving Victorian collieries in Europe and faces the closure of some buildings, including those housing its Big Stuff machinery tour, which opened only two years ago, if repairs are not carried out.
Labour MSP Rhona Brankin tabled a motion last month in the Scottish parliament calling for funds to be made available urgently.
"These are, in my view, some of the finest colliery buildings left in the world and they are in danger of having to be demolished because they are becoming unsafe," she said.
Brankin, the former culture minister in whose constituency the museum is located, asked the Scottish Executive in April for a £3m capital investment programme, which she claimed was promised under the previous Labour administration.
The SNP's Scottish culture minister, Linda Fabiani, said there had been no promise of funds made under Labour. But in a written response to a question posed in parliament, Fabiani said: "The Scottish government will consider capital investment in the national industrial museums on the basis of a detailed business case and, in the case of the mining museum, after a review of the technical details by Historic Scotland."
The lobby for Scotland's industrial museums, including the Scottish Maritime Museum and the Scottish Fisheries Museum, to receive capital funding has been long-standing. All receive revenue grants from the Scottish Executive, and from this month, the money is to be directed through Museums Galleries Scotland.
Fabiani said the government had recently promised £60,000 to the Scottish Maritime Museum for office accommodation and would offer the mining museum £25,000 for immediate repairs.
Scottish Mining Museum director Fergus Waters said the £25,000 was to repair a retaining wall that was dangerous. But he added that the £2.5m was urgently needed to stabilise the building.
Waters said he was unsure how long the museum could continue functioning at full capacity if the money was not forthcoming. "It is nothing that can't be fixed," he said. "It is literally mending the roof and walls. We are not asking for an all-singing, all-dancing interpretation centre."
