We have now submitted our Round Two application to the Heritage Lottery Fund for the Leicester Revealed project and associated works. The application is for £3m to contribute towards the costs of our £11.3m project – we should receive a decision on this by the end of March 2019.
This submission has also coincided with submission of our design proposals to the two bodies whose formal consents we need – the local planning authority as regards external appearance of the new Heritage Learning Centre, and the Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England as regards both that and everything else in the scheme, most especially the changes to the inside of the main cathedral itself.
The project includes reordering of the main Cathedral spaces and will create a link to and provide the new ‘Heritage Learning Centre’ (HLC) which will be spread over 4 floors – Basement -1 and -2, Ground and First. The HLC will likely be a reinforced concrete structure, with stone cladding chosen to be sympathetic to the context and using and clad folded brise-soleil spanning between vertical glazed terracotta fins for passive shading measures and decorative purposes. The new extension building will provide spaces for orientation, education, cathedral back of house facilities and storage areas.
Building work will be carried out in two main phases over two years or more (so that the Cathedral can always remain open to some degree), and then as the associated activity programme kicks in, especially after the main cathedral building re-opens early in 2022.