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New children's gate for growing Black Country Living Museum

A new entrance for children visiting The Black Country Living Museum will be opened next year, amid rising demand for the attraction, it was announced today.

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Bosses at the Dudley-based museum want to open the single-storey entrance building at the southern end of the site. Coachloads of children will head to the entrance using a link road from Castle Hill.

The building will include toilets and a lecture room, which will also be used for workshops for adults outside school hours.

It comes after the museum announced visitor numbers up to August were up 13 per cent from last year, and 10 per cent up during the six-week school holiday period.

The proposal has been submitted to Dudley Council in a planning application. It has been funded thanks to a successful bid from the European Regional Development Fund.

Cash has also come from the Connie and Albert Taylor Trust, which provides funding to charities in the West Midlands.

Andrew Lovett, chief executive of the Black County Living Museum, said: "As part of developing the large area between Dudley Zoo and the museum, known as Castle Hill, we are delighted we have secured European funding, as well as from a number of other sources to develop a new schools' entrance and reception facility.

"The new facility, at the southern end of our open-air site, will take pressure off the museum's main visitor entrance and allow us to welcome the 60,000 school children that visit the museum each year in a much better way.

"We are very pleased to be working so closely with Dudley Council and the other partners to the Castle Hill project to deliver this new reception building for such an important part of our audience at the museum.

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"Subject to receiving planning consent, we expect the new facility to be ready to welcome school groups by September 2015."

The 60,000 children coming to the museum each year make up around 25 per cent of the total visitors. The Castle Hill project will also create one entrance point for Dudley Zoo, Dudley Canal Trust and the Dudley Archives and Local History Centre. Head of learning at the museum, Mel Weatherly, said: "Education is very important to what we do here at the museum and this new facility will serve to vastly improve the experience for school groups."

Dudley Council is expected to make a decision on the proposal in the coming months. The new entrance will be the latest addition to the museum, whose bosses say they are always looking to add to the site.

There are future plans for a project at the site following a £2.56 million Arts Council grant for 2015 and 2018 – but bosses are tight-lipped over what it will be spent on.

See also: Museum plans to boost visitor numbers after downward trend.

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