Low museum visitor numbers contribute to council overspend

Lower-than-predicted visitor numbers for a new railway museum in Darlington have contributed to a £600,000 overspend by the local council, according to a new report.

The Hopetown Darlington museum opened in July 2024, but a report for Darlington Borough Council has suggested that issues including delays in opening certain attractions have meant that its visitor numbers have been half what was predicted, resulting in less income generated from catering, merchandising and car parking.

The report said that a budgetary overspend by the council for this financial year is “mainly from Hopetown Darlington”, where there is a “projected underperformance in income recovery of £600,000 during the initial period of operation compared with the business plan and budget targets”.

“The scale of the project and some of the challenges through the project delivery phase were underestimated,” the report states.