Funding saves code breaking huts at Bletchley Park

THE BLETCHLEY PARK TRUST has secured £7.4m in funding and will use it to renovate its code-breaking huts.

News about the funding comes in the week that Bletchley Park's most famous code breaker Alan Turing would have celebrated his 100th birthday and is good news for the site and UK history.

Turing, his colleagues and the work done at Bletchley Park were key to the UK WW2 effort and the money will be used to restore buildings and turn the park into much more of a commercial venture.

"This is an exciting and unparalleled milestone in the twenty year history of the work of the Bletchley Park Trust, allowing us to start the work of preserving this site for future generations and in permanent tribute to the extraordinary men and women who worked here during WW2," said Iain Standen, CEO of the Bletchley Park Trust.

"Raising these funds has not only been a race against time to save the Huts from dereliction, but also has been imperative in order to create essential capacity and an improved experience for our ever-rising numbers of visitors. We are enormously grateful for the generosity of the Heritage Lottery Fund and other donors for enabling us to start making this vision a reality."

The money will be used to restore codebreaking huts 3 and 6 and build a visitors centre and exhibition space.

More money is needed at the park, and the trust said that it is working its way to raising another £15m. µ