Work begins on 'extraordinary' collections building

The Natural History Museum's Science and Digitisation Centre is expected to be operational in 2031

Work has commenced on an "extraordinary" building that will house millions of specimens from the Natural History Museum.

Twenty-eight million objects will be moved to the Science and Digitisation Centre at Thames Valley Science Park in Shinfield, near Reading, once construction is completed in 2027.

Jessica Bradford, director of collections at the Natural History Museum, said the new building would also include laboratories, public spaces and a broadcast centre.

"We're really excited to see this building," she said.

Jessica Bradford said the site would feature "really important" laboratories

She said it would be "absolutely vast", with the collections stores alone taking up the area of three football pitches.

"Our collection is vast and globally unique - we have 80 million specimens, 4.6 billion years of the Earth's history, every part of the world represented from the solar system to the deep oceans, and [28 million] of those extraordinary items are coming here to Thames Valley Science Park," she said.

And the laboratories, she said, were "really important".

"The Natural History Museum has 400 researchers actively working with our collection to solve the planetary emergency and we really want to accelerate that science, do more with out collections, and unlock those collections for the future of the planet," she said.

Natural History Museum Dr Doug Gurr said, when complete, it would mean Reading had "probably one of the largest and most important natural history collections in the world".

He said the site was chosen because of the museum's relationship with the University of Reading.

Dr Doug Gurr said the museum worked closely with the university

"We'll have joint research programmes where we're going to [ask] really interesting questions like 'how do we preserve nature', 'how do we find solutions for the planetary emergency from nature'," he said.

"We're also going to be doing joint taught programmes so you can come and do a masters in questions like digitisation or technology, and also there'll be opportunities for work placements."

Construction work is expected to finish in 2027, with the site operational by 2031.