For many British aviation museums, it remains difficult to see past the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some are being forced to make very substantial savings, including, as a last resort, staff redundancies. Emergency funding injections from various sources - if, indeed, they are made available - can only go so far. Yet the coronavirus threat is far from gone, and the prospect of local lockdowns forcing short-notice, but potentially lengthy, closures is a very real one indeed. Even so, the sector has been looking ahead. As you'll also read in Steve Slater's Hangar Talk column, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on General Aviation has called on the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to, in its words, establish "a dedicated organisation to support owners of historically important aircraft" The group's Heritage Working Group proposes that such a body would, among other things, provide advice to the likes of government and grant-giving bodies on matters relating to heritage aircraft, offer "leadership and strategic vision" by "acting as the official voice for heritage aircraft" and drawing up and maintaining a register of those aeroplanes in the UK.
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