The Living Museum of the North in Beamish, England, has taken advantage of a regional programme to offer its staff a series of courses designed to boost their skillsets.

Called Go>Grow the £10m (US$14m, €11.4m) scheme funded by the European Social Fund is headed by Gateshead College, which is tasked with delivering training courses to North East businesses wanting to develop workforces and strengthen and grow businesses.

The training, which includes short courses on search engine optimisation, Excel and Microsoft Access, is supporting the ‘Remaking Beamish’ project – an £18m (US$25.2m, €20.6m) expansion featuring a reconstructed 1950s town – which plans to boost visitor numbers and create more jobs at the attraction.

“For a museum steeped in history, we’re very excited for the future,” said Michelle Lagar, Remaking Beamish project officer.

“The training delivered by Gateshead College was tailored to our needs. These bespoke courses have been well-received by the staff that attended and they are now keen to apply what they have learnt in their job roles. The main aim for us all is to continue to provide the best possible experiences for visitors.”

The museum welcomed a record 750,406 visitors last year and was recently voted the Large Visitor Attraction of the Year for the fourth year running at the most recent North East England Tourism Awards. Going forward, the attraction will further utilise the Go>Grow scheme, with the aim enhancing its staff’s capabilities in a variety of roles.

“Gateshead College work closely with organisations to support business success and development. We designed bespoke training to specifically meet the highlighted needs of the business and its customers following detailed meetings and discussions with the Beamish team,” said Ivan Jepson, director of business development at Gateshead College.

“The feedback was fantastic and we look forward to continuing our partnership with Beamish in the near future.”