Leyland vehicle museum suffers thousands of pounds worth of flooding damage

The British Commercial Vehicle Museum in Leyland has been hit with an estimated 'thousands of pounds' worth of damage as a result of the incident.

The King Street attraction reopened this morning after closing the previous day as a result of the incident on Monday evening.

The flooding has put the museum's information screens out of action due to water damage.

Carpets have also been damaged.

Museum manager Keith Moyes explained: "Our neighbours the LFA and Gymtech, water came off their car park and swept under the fence - it was Monday at 7pm, apparently there was a bad storm then.

"It came through the fence, lifted some bark and blocked the drainage channel. Water came through the front door and out of the back."

Mr Moyes said a carpeted area needs to be replaced, and DVDs operated through electrical ducts on the floor are affected.

"We had nine or ten volunteers came to assist to get the water out," he said.

"We're up and running again today.

"Today, tomorrow and Friday we're doing half price entry because half of the facilities are not available. The cafe is up and running."

He said he could not put an exact figure on the cost of the damage but estimated that it would run into "thousands".

He said some £600 had been spent on hiring equipment alone just to get the water away, and the use of dehumidifiers, before taking into account the damage to the carpets and electrics which needs to be assessed.

The museum is fully insured

Mr Moyes said it was not the first time the premises had been flooded and that he would be contacting United Utilities to report the issue.

The museum posted on its Facebook page on Tuesday: "Good news, the museum will be reopening tomorrow, staff and volunteers have worked hard today to clear up the mess left from the flood. Unfortunately the information screens in the museum won't be operational until further notice, due to water damage."

The museum, based in the former vehicle finishing shop of Leyland Motors, received a £1.8 million grant from the National Lottery that secured its long-term future and enable it to be refurbished.

The grant, from the Heritage Lottery Fund funded the ‘Up another gear for the British Commercial Vehicle Museum’ project.

The aim was to attract more visitors from wider audiences and enable them to better understand and engage imaginatively with the collections.

Work on the project start early October 2017 with the museum closing for many months until was complete.