The British Motor Museum has won silver in the Accessible and Inclusive Tourism Award category in the prestigious West Midlands Tourism Awards 2025. The awards were held on 18 March at a special ceremony at Edgbaston Stadium in Birmingham. The Awards celebrate the success and accomplishments of tourism businesses across the West Midlands region, promoting the impressive strength of their services, venues, people, experiences and accommodation.

The Museum is proud of its continuous work to incorporate accessibility and inclusivity into all its activities, from conception to execution. The recent addition of the ‘Austin and Morris’ Office’ displays, with holographic presentations, is a key example of this. Both historic offices are equipped with a tablet, which subtitles the speeches given in the offices, and the displays are equipped with induction loops to support people with hearing aids. Additionally, the Museum hosts accessible school and community visits, and runs a Travel Support Fund to enable schools from low-income areas to visit the Museum by helping them to save money on coach travel.

The Museum also offers Touch and Access Tours and Object Handling workshops, allowing anyone to interact with the cars and objects on display. More recently, the Community team has expanded its external relationships, notably visiting Warm Hubs for the first time, to give people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to see the Museum the chance to engage with the collections. A new permanent Changing Places toilet has also been installed which is designed to accommodate those with accessibility needs, with specialist equipment, such as a hoist and space for carers.

Stephen Laing, Head of Collections & Engagement at the British Motor Museum said, “We are absolutely thrilled to have won silver in the Accessible and Inclusive Tourism Award category. We're so proud to be recognised for our efforts to make automotive history and culture accessible to everyone. A big congratulations to all who were nominated and a big thank you to all those who support the British Motor Museum!”

The West Midlands Tourism Awards are supported by the West Midlands Growth Company, the region’s official destination marketing agency. Pre-pandemic, the tourism sector contributed £13.1 billion to the West Midlands economy, attracting 134 million visitors, and supporting more than 137,000 full-time equivalent jobs.

For more information about the West Midlands Tourism Awards visit http://westmidlandstourismawards.com/ 

To find out more about the British Motor Museum - www.britishmotormuseum.co.uk

Photo of (left to right) Jim Ellison, Emma Rawlinson and Stephen Laing from the Museum collecting the award

Get ready for the best classic bike show in the world – The International Classic MotorCycle Show sponsored by Carole Nash, this April 26-27 at Staffordshire County Showground.

ALEX MARQUEZ #73
“I’m very happy with this sprint race even though I’ll admit that I was expecting a bit more from the second group of riders behind Marc. We had a good pace with 6-7 seconds of margin over the second group. I managed to keep Pecco at bay over the race distance and it was a fun race: I learned a lot behind Marc, who is really strong at this track. At the start I was both good and lucky, and obviously tomorrow we’ll try for a repeat performance even though the track conditions have changed a lot in these two days and it’s not easy to adapt.”
 
FERMIN ALDEGUER #54
“I try to do my best in qualifying by making the most of Marc’s slipstream, but I made a small mistake and ended up last in Q2, which is still my best qualifying position to date. The sprint race was on the other hand an excellent one: we started well and we had the pace to battle for points, but unfortunately a coming together with Marini made cost me the front fairing as well as the left wing, and it was a whole lot different race from then on. Having said that, I’m happy: we need to have the same start tomorrow and make no mistakes.”