Wolverton railway works heritage centre Project

In mid 2013 an idea was formed by two of my friends, well known in railway and Wolverton circles, who have had a lot to do with and are still associated with the Works thought about setting up a visitor centre there. This was when it being operated by Railcare and it was going to be where tours of the works could be undertaken from and included a research room and would house a Wolverton Works’ collection and a digital archive of stories etc. When Railcare went bust in August 2013 just before the 175th anniversary, we were concerned that nothing would happen and all thoughts of a visitor centre died until early 2014. It was then proposed to have a heritage centre in the Works after it was taken over by Knorr-Bremse and there was at that time, plenty of suitable spare space there. The Milton Keynes Museum has some Works’ artefacts and a room dedicated to the Works but this is not always open due to a lack of volunteers and the room is not nearly large enough for any more items or any larger items. When the news came that the 38 acre Works site was going to be totally redeveloped and all the buildings demolished, we said this cannot really happen as the long history will be gone for ever. A few emails were sent to St Modwen ending up with a meeting in September 2014 where we put forward a business plan for the Centre which indicated it would be self-funding after three years. A bottom-up budget template was also prepared for a heritage Centre and when the size of any building was known, this budget would then be populated. Initially St Modwen dismissed the idea of a Heritage Centre but almost immediately (48 hours later in fact!) at a public meeting, they announced that a Heritage Centre was now in their plans. At this meeting with Wolverton Council, St Modwen stated that the Heritage Centre was in their outline plans for the site and I started designing a Heritage Centre in the massive Lifting Shop. The rest of the Wolverton Works heritage project team started to research areas of funding via grants and maybe pump primed by a final Open Weekend at Wolverton. Initial meetings have also been held with the National Railway Museum and well-known personalities who support our aims. Maybe some Wolverton Royal vehicles could eventually be returned to Wolverton Works on display? The proposed Centre would also bridge the gap between the Milton Keynes Museum and the associated Living Archive in a way that there will be a place to research family history via Works’ staff records, local newspapers and Works’ publications. Also photo's and any old artefacts rescued from the existing buildings, some of which are falling down will be used along with all signs and artefacts from the buildings to be demolished. At the time of writing in mid-May, the Planning Application was six months late so we still do not know if there will be a Heritage Centre. I have a facebook group to get the project a bit of visibility.