AN MP has asked for assurances from the Government that funding to maintain the Tom Leonard Mining Museum at Skinningrove will continue.

In a Commons debate this week, Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland MP Ashok Kumar challenged ministers from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to find ways to ensure the museum, and others across the country, could be guaranteed financial backing from the Government.

The museum at Skinningrove celebrates the history of the East Cleveland ironstone mining industry, the work of the miners and community life.

It attracts 5,000 visitors a year and is financially supported by Redcar and Cleveland Council, the Government's Single Regeneration Budget, European funds, the lottery and other charities.

Dr Kumar asked if ministers could guarantee financial backing from the Government for the museum, to cover the changes that will occur with the loss of European funding, and the winding down of the Single Regeneration Budget.

"Support is given to the big national museums, and to well-known collections.

"I think it equally important that people who wish to preserve their own community's heritage and record it for future generations should also get commensurate backing," he said.

"East Cleveland was built on iron. It was the hard, unremitting work of the East Cleveland miners that supplied the blast furnaces of South Bank and Middlesbrough and made modern Teesside what it is today."