Local museums to get £100m boost

The London Transport Museum comes under the London hub

A £100m pot of money earmarked for arts funding will be divided through "hubs" - a network of flagship museums across England.

The money from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) - under the Renaissance banner - is intended to transform regional museums.

Smaller and independent museums will get a share of £21m.

The North West hub, led by Manchester City Galleries, will get the largest share with £7.1m.

The three regions - the North East, South West and West Midlands - have been part of a pilot programme.

MLA chair Mark Wood said: "England has some of the finest regional museums in the world, and with additional funding they have shown they can further increase their appeal to a broad swathe of the population.

"The Renaissance programme has already achieved remarkable improvements in its first phase and we now want to see all English regions benefit from the targeted investment it brings."

The museums in the scheme include well-known establishments such as the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, the London Transport Museum and Chatham Historic Dockyard.

The government created hubs in each of the nine English regions, consisting of a leading museum and up to three partner museums.

The plan is that they would work together to provide leadership in museum practice and improve standards in the museums sector.