Two Gloucester venues will use a grant of £100,000 to develop exhibitions and live attractions as they look to bounce back from being closed during the coronavirus pandemic.

As reported by Punchline-Gloucester.com earlier this week, Gloucester Guildhall and the Museum of Gloucester will share the Arts Council of England grant, part of the Government's £1.57billion Culture Recovery Fund.

Gloucester City Council's Culture Services applied for the grant after both venues were forced to close for six months by the pandemic.

Gloucestershire handed £490k in cultural grants 

The funding will be used to help the Museum of Gloucester develop an exciting exhibition programme and to develop work with local education providers to reimagine how its exhibitions are delivered.

It will also enable the museum to explore the viability of a Friends scheme and develop a donations strategy, as well as opening up opportunities for hiring the museum and for exhibitions to be loaned from other cultural institutions.

Gloucester Guildhall will use the funding to devise and programme new intimate live experiences, develop its digital content and support artists and technicians back to work.

Councillor Steve Morgan, cabinet member for culture and leisure, said: "Both the Museum of Gloucester and the Gloucester Guildhall are important to both the people of Gloucester and to those across the region.

"It is vital these venues will still be here in future to support audiences, so we are very grateful to the Arts Council of England for this much-needed support."

He continued: "We are lucky to have a very passionate and committed team who are working hard to ensure our flagship venues can now stay open and provide a high-quality offer for everyone this winter.

"I must encourage everyone to continue to support your venues so they can survive and thrive in the months and years ahead."