The annual Marsh Trust Award, which recognises volunteers for their work helping museums and heritage sites engage with visitors, has opened for nominations. Museums, galleries, historic houses and heritage sites across the UK can enter for free online. Twelve regional winners will each receive a £500 prize, while an overall UK winner will be presented with an additional £2,000 at a ceremony at the British Museum on 23 September 2024. The awards, which are run by the British Museum in partnership with the Marsh Trust, celebrate “the achievements and contribution of volunteers in museums ..read more

The Turner Contemporary in Margate has partnered with sight loss charity the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) to raise awareness of the importance of using alternative text (alt text) on visual content.  Alt text makes images accessible to ensure blind and partially sighted people. It is a written description of the image read aloud by a screen reader to help people with sight loss understand the content of the image and to engage with it.  Creative agency MullenLowe UK collaborated with the gallery and charity to create an alt text description of Antony Gormley’s scul ..read more

Campaigners are seeking reassurances on the future of Buxton Museum & Art Gallery after Derbyshire County Council confirmed that the Peak Buildings complex that houses the institution is to be sold off. The museum was closed abruptly in June 2023 after assessments revealed structural issues caused by dry rot, making parts of the historic building potentially unsafe. According to the council, further investigation confirmed that the building is no longer viable due to “the potential costs and length of time which could be needed for us to bring the building back into use as a modern day mus ..read more

Children and adults visiting Stonehenge during the May half-term will be invited to design and create their own temporary adventure playground on the site. Playhenge, which opened on Friday 17 May and runs until Tuesday 4 June, has been developed by English Heritage, which manages the site, in partnership with constructive play specialist Woodland Tribe. The 50-minute activity is included as part of the standard Stonehenge entry ticket, with tools and natural building materials provided by English Heritage. “Playhenge is a one-of-a-kind experience that allows our visitors to connect with the s ..read more

The Science Museum Group (SMG) has opened an £8m building to house its collections at Locomotion in Shildon, County Durham. The New Hall development is part of a wider £95m masterplan project across Locomotion and the National Railway Museum in York, which is also run by SMG. Both venues are benefiting from new spaces and conservation work on their collections. The new building at Shildon is the museum’s most significant regeneration project since it opened 20 years ago, making it the largest undercover collection of historic rail vehicles anywhere in Europe.   More than 100 veh ..read more

The funding body for higher education in Scotland has cut its regular grant to university museums, galleries and collections by 26% for 2024/25. The Scottish Funding Council has reduced the available Museums, Galleries and Collections grant pot from £1.2m in 2023/24 to £884,000 in 2024/25 in response to a “particularly challenging” budget settlement. The funding council has also made the decision to withdraw university museums that do not hold Recognised collections from the grant altogether. Institutions with Recognised collections will see their grants reduced by 20%. University Museums in S ..read more

The Museums Association (MA) has urged its members to make the case for the value of museums to economy and society ahead of the General Election on 4 July. The MA has produced a Museum Manifesto with a clear set of asks for political parties, along with top advocacy tips. MA director Sharon Heal said: “The general election provides an opportunity for us all to make a strong case for the value of museums to society. We are urging our members and museum workers across the UK to support our manifesto and to make candidates aware of how much museums contribute to our economic and social wellbeing ..read more

The Cultural Learning Alliance has called on a future UK government to rethink the role of the expressive arts in education after it published a damning report that shows creative and cultural education in England’s state schools has been systemically deprioritised over the past 14 years. This is the first time the charity has examined key arts education data from 2010-2023 in one place. Its report found a 42% decline in arts GCSE entries since the Conservation-led coalition government came into power in 2010. More than 40% of English state schools are no longer entering any pupils for music a ..read more

Andrew Edwards has been appointed as the chief executive of the SS Great Britain Trust in Bristol, following Matthew Tanner stepping down after 26 years last autumn. Edwards led the Sussex Archaeological Society from April 2021 until September 2022 as chief executive, and before that was at Canterbury Cathedral Trust and the National Churches Trust. He is a trustee at Tenby Museum & Art Gallery and the Creative Dimension Trust and was a mentor for the Changing Lives Campaign at St Marylebone Church in London. As head of the charity, which runs the museum, visitor attraction and Brunel Inst ..read more

Ten museums will participate in a pilot programme to test how new access tools perform in real-life museum and heritage settings. The Sensational Museum research project is hoping to develop novel multisensory approaches to museum provision that challenge what is described as the “hierarchical split between museum provision for disabled and non-disabled people”. The £1m project intends to rethink the role of senses in all aspects of museum work, from accession, cataloguing and collections through to curating, exhibitions and the visitor experience. The team is particularly interested in develo ..read more