The Project is on course!

The Highlanders’ Museum Development Project has received no less than 5 awards from public bodies – a total of just over £125,000.  These awards were made by The Heritage Lottery Fund, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, the Highland LEADER Programme, the Highland Culture Programme and the Bord na Gaidhlig.  Much of the credit for gaining such outstanding success is due to Pete Guthrie our Development Director.

These awards indicate the strongest possible endorsement for what the Trustees are trying to achieve at the Museum for our Regimental Heritage in the long term.  These awards also enable us to move on to the next stage; the Design and Development Phase.

The Trustees and the Museum Development Committee (MDC), with the full guidance of Donald Mackenzie, Operations Director of The Tulloch Group, have overseen the tendering and selection process for a Project Manager, a very key appointment in delivering a successful project.  Gardiner and Theobald have been appointed as the Project Managers.  They have offices in Edinburgh, Glasgow and London and have been involved in the refurbishment of the Queen’s Gallery, The National Museum of Flight and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery amongst a wide variety of projects.  Martin Sinclair will be our Project Manager.  He was also involved in the Eden Court Theatre refurbishment and extension and thus has worked with Pete Guthrie before and has excellent local contacts and knowledge.  He has extensive experience of Heritage projects including working with the HLF, ERDF and HIE.

The next step is to tender for the Design Team and to produce even more detailed plans than we have now.  These plans – when ready – will be available for comment by the Trustees (in their capacity as the Museum Management Committee), the MDC, the Museum Advisory Committee (MAC) and members of the Regiment and other interested parties.  We are also keeping in close touch with Historic Scotland and with Defence Estates who clearly have considerable interest in our Project.

We are confident that the Design and Development Phase will produce the right plans for this major upgrade of the Regimental Museum.  Furthermore we are confident that the successful completion of this Phase will gain us very substantial public funds for the Implementation and Construction Phase in 2011/2012.

We will be widening the Appeal later this year with two key launches. The Regimental Launch will take place at the Fort on Saturday 11^th September.  General Sir Jeremy Mackenzie, our Appeal President and former Colonel of the Regiment and Commanding Officer will be the Guest of Honour.

We make great progress with the Project and it has enormous support nationally and locally.  Thank you for yours – we look forward to seeing a good number of you at one or other of the Launches!

Seymour Monro