Eureka Mersey set for £7m funding boost

The £12m museum remains on course to open at Spaceport next to Seacombe Ferry with the project set to secure a funding package from the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority this week.

Designed as a sister site for the children’s museum’s base in Halifax, the £11m project will provide an interactive museum targeted at seven to 14-year-olds, and is expected to create 28 full-time and 91 indirect jobs.

It will be based in an expansion of the existing Spaceport tourist attraction, which first opened in 2005 and features galleries, exhibitions, and an observatory. The Seacombe Terminal is linked via ferry to Liverpool’s waterfront.

A £3m funding deal as part of the Governmen’s £13m Inspiring Science Fund was agreed last August, and the Combined Authority is due to sign off an additional £6.6m from its Single Investment Fund when it meets this Friday. Further funding to meet the scheme’s £12m total is to come from Wirral Council.

Partners to contribute industry knowledge and case studies to the museum are to include Unilever, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, SciTech Daresbury, and Liverpool John Moores University.

The new museum previously lost out on Government funding from the £15m Northern Cultural Regeneration Fund in March last year, which saw projects in Blackpool and Windermere secure backing.

Eureka’s central Government funding award was the joint-highest of the six projects to secure backing through the fund, along with Cardiff-based Techniquest, which also bagged £3m.

The other projects to win funding were the National Space Centre in Leicester, which was granted £1.9m; Dundee Science Centre, which secured £1.5m; and Glasgow Science Centre, which won £2.9m.