By Joe Locker, Local Democracy Reporter
Nottingham Castle has welcomed almost 150,000 visitors and brought in roughly £3.3m to the local economy since it reopened.
Nottingham City Council brought the historic site back under its control last year and reopened the gates in June, following the collapse of Nottingham Castle Trust in November 2022.
A “more realistic” annual visitor target of 200,000 was set by the council, lower than the trust’s original hopes of 300,000.
Documents published ahead of a Communities and Environment Scrutiny Committee on February 7 show in six months between June 26 and December 31 last year, the attraction reached 147,174 visitors.
“This success is thanks to everyone involved, including visitors, team members, volunteers and the community,” documents say.
Visitors are charged £12 for an annual pass ticket, which allows any number of repeat visits, while children under 15 go free.
Schools and groups are charged £5 per person.
Out of the total visitor numbers, 69,761 were paying adults, 24,036 were children, and there were 19,039 repeat visits.
A further 4,335 attended for free, 28,263 attended for events such as the Eurovision screening and King’s Coronation, and 1,740 attended as part of school visits.
Based on admissions data, the council says more than 71 per cent of visitors came from the East Midlands.
Just over six per cent travelled from the West Midlands and almost four per cent from London.
Documents also reveal start-up costs were 12 per cent lower than anticipated.
Over three years, the council allocated £2.130m from its medium-term budgets and a further £1.8m for the business plan.
It is estimated the added value to the local economy created from the reopening of the attraction in the first six months is in the region of £3.3m.
“Income and costs are on target,” documents add.
Some negative feedback received during the Trust’s running of the site has also been addressed.
This included accessibility issues which had been “affecting the visitor experience”.
Council documents say: “The art gallery labels were renumbered for greater clarity, large print and Braille information was produced for all permanent galleries, additional artworks from the collection were introduced, along with greater digital access via the Bloomberg Connects app.”
Relationships with schools and universities have also been strengthened, while the Brewhouse Yard offer has been completed and is now open.
