A TOWN is putting out the flags and decorating its shopfronts to show judges its support for a museum vying for Britain's biggest art award.

Three judges from the Gulbenkian Museum of the Year Awards will visit the region today for the last time to decide if Locomotion: The National Railway Museum in Shil-don, County Durham, should win the £100,000 prize.

Broadcaster Joan Bakewell, sculptor Sokari Douglas Camp and journalist Victoria Hislop will climb aboard a replica of the Sans Pareil, one of the world's greatest railway treasures, designed by rail pioneer Timothy Hackworth in Shildon in 1829.

The engine will take them to meet museum manager George Muirhead and Andrew Scott, head of the National Railway Museum, who will show them the £11m site.

The museum is hoping to beat Great Yarmouth's Time and Tide Museum, the National Mining Museum of Wales and the Coventry Transport Museum to win the title.

The winner will be announced on Thursday, May 26, in London.

This weekend, Shildon window cleaner Jimmy Milner took time out of his duties to decorate the town's main streets with flags to show how enthusiastic residents are about the award.

He said: "The museum, the way it was built and the staff there are brilliant, and this has been proved by the fact that over 100,000 people have visited the town since it opened. That has doubled the estimated figure already.

"I definitely hope it wins the award, because it will not only put Shildon on the map, it will promote tourism in County Durham."

Published: 18/04/2005