IN ITS most ambitious plan to date, the Bowes museum will start to prepare a bid to the national lottery in the new year, which it hopes will net it up to £30m in funding.

The Barnard Castle treasure house originally planned to submit a bid to the regional heritage lottery fund next June, with aim of receiving £500,000, which would act as a magnet to draw in £5m. But marketing officer Dr Anne Allen this week said that they were now looking towards submitting a bid for the much higher sum in 2003.

"The goalposts have moved in relation to the size of the project," said Dr Allen. "So we need more time to prepare, as bidding for national lottery funding is a totally different process than the bid we were originally preparing."

Dr Allen said it was also necessary to postpone the bid until 2003 because the museum would have to submit three years' accounts to qualify.

"We were only established as an independent charitable trust 18 months ago," she added. "So it will be another 18 months before we have those accounts."

Asked why it was felt necessary to up the bid, Dr Allen said the first part of next year would be spent preparing a business plan, building survey and space audit, but the initial feeling was that more work than at first thought would probably be necessary.

She went on to say that they were looking at potential new building at the rear of the museum to create specialist storage facilities.

"The requirements of keeping antiquities in the 21st century were not thought of when the Bowes was built," said Dr Allen. "We have been making the best of a bad job, with treasures inadequately stored, and we hope we will be able to remedy that."

The idea of relocating the cafe and shop to any new building would also be explored, freeing up valuable exhibition space in the core of the museum.

As part of a government idea for national museums to offer support to regional treasure houses, the Bowes is partnering the Wallace collection in London, which is also a founder's collection.

"They are going to take on a mentoring role with some of our younger, less experienced staff," said Dr Allen.

The Bowes is also set to take advice from other museums, which have submitted bids to the national lottery, in the hope of emulating their success.

In the meantime, the Bowes has a full programme of events planned for the coming year, including a gala concert to commemorate the Queen's golden jubilee in June. The open air event on the museum's terrace, which will cater for up to 6,000 people, will take the form of a military tattoo, but without the marching.

l Details of the concert and other exhibitions such as a major display of sugarcraft will feature in next week's D&S Times.