Caption: Executive Member for Leisure Cllr John Procter holding the award with Visitor Assistants Victoria Kew (left) and Gemma Pollard
The new Leeds City Museum has claimed its first major award after triumphing at a prestigious event dubbed ‘the Oscars of the museum world’.
The new £20m attraction off Millennium Square, which has proved phenomenally popular since opening last September, was given the Reader’s Award for Best Museum at this year’s national Museums and Heritage Awards for Excellence held in London.
The Leeds City Museum came out on top despite stiff competition in a category containing 167 museums from all over the country, with readers of Museums and Heritage magazine ranking it top of the pile.
The new museum joins an illustrious list of previous winners, including the Victoria & Albert Museum of Childhood in London, the National Science Museum and Weston Park Museum in Sheffield.
Leeds City Museum continues to attract huge numbers of visitors, and is well on the way to seeing 250,000 people through its doors in less than a year since opening.
Leeds City Council executive member for Leisure Councillor John Procter said:
“It is absolutely fantastic that our amazing new museum has won this award which is recognised as being the best of the best. The fact that it has been voted for the public just shows how amazingly popular the new Leeds City Museum has been, and clearly word is spreading about how good it is all over the country.
“This is a tremendous achievement for everyone involved in creating and running the new museum, and hopefully is just the first of many awards to come in the future as a reward for all their hard work.”
The majority of the finance for the £20m museum project - plus the accompanying £6m Discovery Centre which houses the city’s museum archive and opened in 2007 at Clarence Dock - has come from the Heritage Lottery Fund, which has covered 75% of the overall cost. Leeds City Council and Yorkshire Forward are the other main funders.
For details about exhibitions, opening times and other information about the museum go to www.leeds.gov.uk/citymuseum It is open six days a week, Tuesday to Sunday, and closed on Mondays.
For media enquiries please contact:
Roger Boyde, Learning and Leisure Media Relations Officer,
Tel 0113 247 5472, Email: roger.boyde@leeds.gov.uk
