Disappointment… well, sort of
East Lothian Council had put together an application to the Big Lottery Fund’s Living Landmark programme for Prestongrange (combining the museum and the Morrison’s Haven site across the road). The commitment to redevelopment at Prestongrange is a long-standing one, but the Living Landmark scheme offered an opportunity for funding that in many ways would have been less complicated than the funding routes we were previously looking at (these involved a number of different funders for different aspects of the redevelopment). However, as is the way of these things, many are called, but few are chosen - and Prestongrange did not make it through to the next round of selection. Well, they don’t call it the Lottery for nothing.
Still, the work that was done in producing the application will not have been wasted, as it will form the basis for our subsequent applications. In particular this process has given us a much clearer integrated vision of what we would like to do with the site, and the process of public consultation which will inform the development process has got underway. We always knew that Prestongrange was a site of enormous significance in Scotland’s industrial and social history. This has been reinforced by the results of the first phase of the Community Archaeology project. Now we have a vision for the site. All we need to do now is work with the community to fill in the details - then fill in the applications and win the grants.
After that the hard work will really start…