Wakefield Council gets National Lottery cash for history project

Wakefield Council has been given £245,623 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund

A six-figure grant has been secured to help preserve the history of Wakefield.

Wakefield Council has been given £245,623 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund for the two-year project Our Heritage Our Stories.

It comes after the local authority's Our Year 2024 programme to help promote the city was launched last month.

The council said the grant would help create a "one-stop shop for anybody interested in learning about the district's heritage."

Our Heritage Our Stories will run between April and March 2026 and will encourage people in Wakefield to celebrate the area's history through activities and events.

Michelle Collins, the council's cabinet member for culture, said: "It brings many exciting opportunities to work together with communities, groups, and partners to deliver an exciting range of activities across our communities."

She said there were also plans to "modernise" its archives to make them more accessible.

The Heritage Portal website will "provide information and opportunities, promotion of events, activities and heritage groups, downloadable learning and other resources and much more," a council spokesperson added.

'Great stories'

Helen Featherstone, from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, said local people would "have the opportunity to better understand their history and help others discover their own."

The grant can only be spent on the heritage project.

Wakefield Civic Society president Kevin Trickett said it would help "great stories" from the city "be studied and brought to life."

Other plans for the Our Heritage Our Stories project include highlighting the work of local heritage groups during May's WordFest.

Heritage groups displays, activities and talks to the public will also take place across the district's libraries and museums throughout May, the council spokesperson added.