{"id":390035,"date":"2026-04-09T15:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T15:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/390035\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T15:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T15:22:10","slug":"discovery-museum-and-laing-art-gallery-set-for-safety-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/390035\/","title":{"rendered":"Discovery Museum and Laing Art Gallery set for safety work"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A council spokesperson said: &#8220;A recent inspection by us, highlighted urgent work that needed carrying out to keep the buildings open.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">At the Laing, the public lift needs improved wheelchair access while the goods lift will be moved.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Both the Laing Art Gallery and Discovery Museum are among the city&#8217;s finest free cultural assets and are increasingly popular among visitors,&#8221; the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This [work] will keep them safe for visitors and compliant with legislation while safeguarding their futures.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Significant restoration work recently began at the Discovery Museum, based in the Grade II listed Blandford House on Blandford Square.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There have long been concerns about the state of the building, which houses treasures such as Charles Parsons&#8217; Turbinia &#8211; the first ship to be powered by steam turbines and once the fastest vessel in the world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Bosses warned in 2022 the venue was in a &#8220;serious state of decline&#8221;, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/lnp\/ldrs\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Local Democracy Reporting Service<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">More than \u00a33m in government funding was secured to replace the roof, with work scheduled to be completed by spring next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A council spokesperson said: &#8220;A recent inspection by us, highlighted urgent work that needed carrying out to keep&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-390035","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}