CURATORS are celebrating a £150,000 cash injection that will help a planned vehicle conservation centre at the Bovington Tank Museum become a reality.

Heritage Lottery Fund trustees agreed the award, which will support detailed plans for a new 40,000sq ft building to store up to 120 armoured vehicles.

The donation follows a £16m HLF sponsored redevelopment of the museum.

Tank Museum director Richard Smith said: “We want to put indoors all the vehicles that are outdoors and those that are currently housed in cramped, damp and unheated sheds need to be stored in a building suitable for their longer term conservation needs.”

Now the second stage of the vehicle conservation centre’s fundraising campaign can start – with the museum hoping to raise £2.7m to match lottery funding for the scheme.

Mr Smith said: “We are delighted to have passed this critical hurdle in the process, and we can now turn our attention to developing our stage two application to secure the funding.

“The new building will be publicly accessible, making these normally off-display vehicles visible to all visitors for the first time ever.”

The bid also includes the provision of two major new exhibitions inside the museum’s Discovery Centre.

“Any new exhibition requires more space on the museum floor,” said Mr Smith. “The vehicle conservation centre will allow us to effectively rotate our collections to make space for them, and over time display the whole collection.

“If you take our Battlegroup Afghanistan exhibition as an example, a space that once held 12 vehicles now holds just four – but these are surrounded by world class interpretation in an atmospheric exhibition.

“The conservation centre will ensure we can develop exhibitions in the museum whilst ensuring the vehicles that are moved remain on display elsewhere.”

It is hoped the new building could be completed by late 2013.