Race on to complete £17m museum for Burns' anniversary
The birthplace of Robert Burns is set for a £17 million makeover, including a new museum housing the richest collection of Burns artefacts in the world. 
But planners face an almost impossible deadline to complete the Burns International Museum in time for the Scottish tourism drive planned around the Bard's 250th birthday. They have barely 18 months to build the museum and prepare its exhibits by 25 January, 2009, the launch of the "Year of Homecoming".
The Heritage Lottery Fund approved a £5.8 million grant yesterday and the Scottish Executive another £5.5 million towards the ambitious project in the village of Alloway, Ayrshire.
It includes the restoration of the thatched cottage where Burns was born, which is riddled with damp.
The existing museum will be converted into an education centre, designed by Leith architects Simpson & Brown, and will boast a central atrium featuring key events in Burns's lifetime.
In a collection of 4,500 artefacts, icons range from copies of Auld Lang Syne and Tam O'Shanter in the poet's own hand to his family Bible, furniture, duelling pistols. The museum will house a research library and restaurant.
"Funding for the Burns International Museum will preserve the legacy of our national bard," said the culture minister, Patricia Ferguson, announcing the award. "Robert Burns is a cultural icon and he still continues to inspire new generations of Scots."
But the National Trust for Scotland, now running the project, faces a funding gap of more than £5 million. The trust's chairman, Shonaig Macpherson, said a worldwide appeal is planned for next January involving the World Federation of Burns Clubs and Burns supper devotees from England to Russia.
RECORD FUNDING
THE transformation of the Royal Museum building in Edinburgh won a record-breaking £32 million in public funding yesterday. The Heritage Lottery Fund gave final approval to a grant of £16.7 million - its biggest award for the capital.
The Scottish Executive also announced it was backing the plans with £15.2 million, the biggest sum it has ever given to a cultural refurbishment project.
The National Museums Scotland has unveiled a £46 million overhaul for the Victorian Royal Museum building, due for completion by 2011.
POET'S PAPERS ON THE WEB
Official documents relating to Scotland's bard can be viewed online from today, exactly 248 years after his birth.
The birth and marriage certificates of Robert Burns are going on the internet as part of a £3 million project to make digital images of old certificates held at the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS).