Code breaking site receives funding from Heritage lottery Fund

The National Lottery supports many good causes and the latest beneficiaries of a cash sum from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) is the wartime site Bletchley Park near Milton Keynes.

The site is famous for the code breaking work that was done there during the Second World War and the computers used that carried out the sensitive work such as Colossus. The news that funding is going to be granted will be a major boost to the site which has been open as a museum since 1994 and comes only weeks after Alan Turing’s posthumous apology by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The HLF will initially put £500,000 into the site but it is believed the site will actually need £10 million plus an extra £250,000 per year for the first five years. The Bletchley Park Trust are currently preparing an application for a £4.1 million grant to carry out the restoration further and make the site a must see visitor attraction.

There is some thought that the research and developments at the site actually reduced the length of the war by about two years and the HLF money will mean that hopefully the site will be appreciated by future generations for many more years to come.