A NORTH-EAST museum has been awarded £147,000 to enable it to buy its land and buildings.

The Cleveland Mining Museum, formally the Tom Leonard Mining Museum, in Skinningrove, east Cleveland, tells the history of ironstone mining in the region.

The grant, from the Single Pot, a fund administered by the Tees Valley Partnership on behalf of regional development agency One NorthEast, will allow the museum to apply to other groups for grants, including the National Heritage Lottery Fund.

It is hoped this will increase visitor numbers and help in the regeneration of the area by increasing employment.

Museum president Peter Tuffs said: "This is a very exciting time for the museum.

"We were previously renting the museum, but this funding has allowed us to buy the current museum, as well as extra land and buildings.

"But now we own the museum, we have a platform to bid for Heritage Lottery money to help us realise a vision of regeneration for the area and help increase education possibilities, outreach work and the work we do with old people's homes."

Published: 14/02/2004