Lottery funding secured for Edinburgh's Royal High School transformation

Edinburgh Evening News

The Royal High School Preservation Trust (RHSPT) has announced a significant funding package potentially worth £5 million from The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Transcript

00:00So we at the National Lottery Heritage Fund have awarded funding to the Royal High School

00:06Preservation Trust because it's vitally important to secure this historic building for the future.

00:11This National Lottery Heritage Fund award for us is unbelievable. It's such a validation

00:17of the project we have here at the old Royal High School, which has been a building hidden

00:21in plain sight for so long, 50 years, and now here we are being able to wake it up and

00:26this award helps us do that. Historically it's been a place of learning and inspiration

00:31sending young people out into the world and we really hope that this project will do that

00:34same thing again. The grant will also allow us to connect more deeply with communities

00:38around the building, so in Edinburgh but also the communities across Scotland that we want

00:42to engage with in terms of musical identity and so we'll get to understand how people

00:46want to use the building, what they care about here, the stories they want to learn about

00:50in terms of its heritage and history. Next steps we move on to the real construction

00:54development phase that starts this summer and it's all go from there. We've got a real

00:58sense of momentum at the moment and we know that if we're successful in the next stage

01:03of this Heritage Lottery Fund application we'll be at 90% of our funding target, which

01:07really means we can taste the end point and we're getting closer to opening the doors.

01:12The other thing that's significant for us with this award is that having this public

01:15support means we've got a new sense of energy, a new commitment and a new desire to make

01:20sure we really represent the full breadth of music making happening in Scotland. We

01:25can't thank the Lottery Fund enough, we're so grateful, it really means we move ahead

01:29at pace to develop the National Centre for Music.

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