The London Transport Museum (LTM) is planning a £23 million redevelopment of its Covent Garden home, creating more exhibition space and increasing capacity to accommodate growing visitor numbers.

Regular visitors will know that in a corner of the museum, there’s a large graphic on the fire escape showing a futuristic image of London in the year 2026. As part of the refurbishment, that image is to be taken down. Not because it’s out of date, but because that’s where the museum’s new entrance is going.

In fact, the plans will restore the entrance to its original location.

The museum’s current entrance was relocated during the 2007 refurbishment, routing visitors through the shop before they enter the galleries. While commercially successful, the arrangement leaves visitors facing a long, largely featureless corridor as they enter the museum.

That corridor is largely a consequence of accessibility works carried out in 2005. Because the museum could not excavate into the historic floor, the lifts were installed around a metre above floor level to accommodate their lift pits. This required extensive ramps throughout the building, with much of the ground floor raised on a platform and additional ramps connecting different areas.

Modern lift technology no longer requires such deep pits, allowing most of those ramps to be removed. The resulting redesign will free up valuable gallery space and create a more intuitive layout for visitors.

The long blank corridor will itself be turned into an event space.

No longer needing the long entrance slope means they can flip the museum entrance back to its original location. From here, people will be able to walk straight into the museum, and the intention is to maximise the double-height space to create a bit of a wow factor when you walk in by moving the buses out to the sides rather than the barrier-like block they are in at the moment.

There will be more spaces created around the rest of the museum, mainly by rationalising back-of-house staff areas. There’s already been some changes, such as a new video room next to the toilets, and a new gallery is being built at the moment.

Overall, they expect to add about 500 square metres of public space to the museum, allowing for about 90,000 additional visitors per year on top of the 450,000 they’ve reached in recent years.

One of the most visible changes, aside from the collection layouts, will be the removal of the bridge across the main gallery. People will instead be able to walk around all three other sides of the main gallery, through a new space at the far end of the building.

Moving the museum’s entrance could also benefit one of the museum’s most successful attractions: the shop. It attracts more than twice as many visitors as the museum itself. To borrow from the V&A’s famous 1980s advertising slogan, the London Transport Museum is an ace shop with quite a nice museum attached.

The money-spinning cafe and shop will also be refurbished as part of the plans.

Alongside the revamping of the museum interior, the project will address several hidden issues, primarily related to drainage, the removal of the gas boilers, and the upgrade of the rooftop solar panels.

The museum expects to remain open throughout the redevelopment works, and everything should be completed in time for its 50th anniversary in 2030.

The whole project is set to cost around £26 million, and they’re raised £1 million from the Arts Council, £300,000 from the LT Museum Friends and a £12 million grant from Transport for London (TfL).

That leaves just under £13 million still to be raised. However, work can begin before all the funding is secured, with the museum drawing on its reserves to finance the early stages of the redevelopment.

Elizabeth McKay, Director and CEO of London Transport Museum comments: “London’s transport story is one of the greatest innovation stories in the world, and this transformation is about sharing that story in a bigger, bolder and more inspiring way than ever before.”

“For generations, Londoners and visitors have come to the Museum to explore the city and its stories through its transport system. As we approach our 50th anniversary, we’re creating an experience that captures the energy, creativity and optimism of London itself – while opening the doors to even more people.”

During a briefing for museum supporters, an update was also provided on the museum’s Acton Depot, where the majority of the collection is stored.

Although there has long been an expectation that the site could eventually be redeveloped for housing, the museum confirmed that the depot will remain in Acton as part of any future plans. Options under consideration include redevelopment around the depot, and it could even emerge with slightly more space than it has today — a useful prospect given the size of the museum’s collection of trains and buses.

The museum also confirmed that it expects to acquire one of the older DLR trains when they are withdrawn from service.