Twenty-four local museums across England will share £4 million in capital grants through the DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund, a public–philanthropic partnership between the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Wolfson Foundation. DCMS states the 15th funding round is designed to improve displays, strengthen collection care and widen physical and interpretive access.
According to DCMS and the Wolfson Foundation, the round brings together £2 million from each partner for 2025–27, taking the programme’s lifetime awards to more than £50 million over 24 years and supporting over 440 projects. The scheme provides capital rather than revenue support, with typical investments covering gallery infrastructure, display cases, lighting and environmental controls to meet conservation and security standards.
Allocations are distributed across all English regions. In this round the North East receives £1,019,700; the West Midlands £752,800; the East of England £586,500; the South West £552,900; the South East £501,900; the North West £238,700; the East Midlands £210,600; London £75,000; and Yorkshire and the Humber £61,900.
Four awards are made in the North East and four each in the West Midlands and South West, with four in the South East, two in the North West, two in the East of England, one in the East Midlands, one in London and two in Yorkshire and the Humber. Grant sizes in this round range from £22,000 to £357,600.
High‑value awards include £357,600 to the Food Museum, £317,100 to Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, and £316,200 to Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books. Manchester Museum receives £200,000, while the Black Country Living Museum and Kirkleatham Museum each receive £272,000.
Norwich Castle is awarded £228,900. On 9 April 2026, Museums Minister Baroness Twycross and the Wolfson Foundation’s Chief Executive Paul Ramsbottom met local representatives on site to discuss planned upgrades to gallery infrastructure, the remodelling of display cases and the reinterpretation of collections intended to enhance the visitor experience.
At the Black Country Living Museum, funding will reactivate historic electric trolleybuses and extend the route through the recreated 1940s–60s high street, protecting a nationally significant transport collection and improving the visitor offer.
In Hartlepool, the award supports a new Temporary Exhibitions Gallery and Collections Care Facility, including new cases, lighting, flooring and environmental controls. DCMS notes the upgrade is intended to meet national security and conservation standards and to provide secure, climate‑controlled conditions for stored artefacts.
Kirkleatham Museum in Redcar and Cleveland will redevelop its core galleries around the themes People and Place, Industry and Innovation, and Heritage and Discovery. The project will deliver modern, accessible displays that better reflect local stories and the area’s heritage.
Other recipients include the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, the British Motor Museum and Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in the West Midlands; Platt Hall and Manchester Museum in the North West; SS Great Britain, the Museum of Barnstaple and North Devon, and The Burton at Bideford in the South West; Reading Museum, the Weald and Downland Living Museum, the Booth Museum of Natural History and the Pitt Rivers Museum in the South East; the Garden Museum in London; the National Tramway Museum in the East Midlands; and the Thackray Museum of Medicine and the Hepworth Wakefield in Yorkshire and the Humber.
DCMS positions the fund as a route to broaden participation by improving both physical access and interpretive content, while strengthening the resilience of collections care. The department and the Wolfson Foundation emphasise the value of combining public funding and private philanthropy to reduce barriers to engaging with the UK’s museum collections.
For museum directors, local authorities and trusts, the awards create a near‑term capital planning window through 2025–27. Several projects focus on compliance‑critical works-cases, lighting and environmental controls-identified by DCMS as necessary to meet national security and conservation standards, alongside better step‑free routes and refreshed interpretation.