TWO cultural projects will not receive Levelling Up funds after the council admitted it had underestimated how much other schemes would cost.

Worcester City Council last month unveiled plans to invest in a series of heritage and arts projects across the city after being awarded £5 million from the government’s Levelling Up fund.

These included the creation of learning centres in the City Art Gallery and the Tudor House Museum, a new Battle of Worcester Sculpture and work on the mezzanine levels of the Corn Exchange building as part of the Scala project.

But after further investigation into the costs involved, two schemes will not make the cut - one to spend £22,000 on a portable stage to support community festivals and the other to improve access and security at Pitchcroft at a cost of £900,000.

The money saved on those projects will help cover others that have turned out to be more expensive than first thought.

Managing director David Blake told councillors at Tuesday’s (May 21) Policy and Resources committee meeting: “Officers have carried out significant further due diligence and it has become clear that in some areas those costs that we originally estimated have significantly increased.”

Some of the biggest increases involve the proposed improvements to Gheluvelt and Cripplegate parks.

Mr Blake said: “When we started to look at the cost of a new bandstand in Cripplegate plus the cost of repairs to the existing bandstand in Gheluvelt, plus the additional toilet blocks and the new toilets it became clear the original estimate was insufficient.

“So in order to take those projects forward we had to make rather difficult decisions in terms of the reallocation of funding.”

The city council is in the process of preparing a submission to the Department for Levelling Up, which it must complete by June 3.

The 500th anniversary redesign of the Tudor House Museum is now slated to cost £326,000, as opposed to the original £298,000.

The city council has now allocated £65,000 to the Battle of Worcester Sculpture, compared to its initial £50,000 estimate.

Arts in the Arches, Music Box, Comer Gardens Institute, the Swan Theatre Accessibility scheme, the Scala co-working space and Angel Place public space projects are still included in the council's proposal.