Science and Industry Museum to leave Grade II-listed Manchester hall

The hall on Liverpool Road was built to house an indoor market in 1876

The Science and Industry Museum is to leave a listed hall to ensure it can preserve its "globally significant buildings", it has been announced.

The Manchester museum said it would be vacating Lower Campfield Market Hall, which houses its Air and Space Hall.

It said the Grade II-listed building needed investment and as such, the decision had been taken to no longer lease it from Manchester City Council.

The council said new plans for the future of the hall were being drawn up.

The Liverpool Road building, which was built to house an indoor market in 1876, opened as the council-run Air and Space Museum in 1983 before becoming part of the then North Western Museum of Science and Industry two years later.

The lease transferred to the Science Museum Group in 2012, when the organisation took over the running of the wider museum.

A spokeswoman said the majority of the hall's exhibits would be returned to owners

The Science and Industry Museum's director Sally Macdonald said the decision to vacate had "not been easy" but was "the right thing to do for our visitors, the building and the city".

She said the group had "invested significant resource" to maintain the hall, which has been closed for some time, and the money needed to bring it back to life was "substantial".

"We take seriously our responsibility to look after our globally significant buildings, which include the world's oldest surviving passenger station and railway warehouse, and we have to prioritise these buildings that we own," she added.

A spokeswoman said the majority of the hall's exhibits would be returned from loan to their home organisations, while those the museum owns would feature in future exhibitions.

City council leader Sir Richard Leese said councillors "recognise that to thrive, museums need to evolve over time".

He continued: "As such, we support the planned changes. This creates an opportunity to introduce new activities into the building.

"We are developing proposals to refurbish both Upper and Lower Campfield Markets to create and support jobs. These will be brought forward in due course."