LIVERPOOL’S new museum has won a £1.4m Government grant to pay its running costs for its first year.

The waterfront X-shaped development will benefit from the extra funding in 2010 after a spending review by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Culture Secretary James Purnell pledged an extra £50m to Arts Council England to be invested in the arts over the next three years.

The funding guarantees free public admission to England’s national museums and galleries until at least 2011.

National Museums Liverpool say the extra £1.4m funding will enable them to provide a world-class tourist attraction, displaying popular objects like the Lion steam locomotive and a carriage from Liverpool's historic overhead railway.

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