A donation from Facebook has helped save some jobs at the Bletchley Park wartime coding centre in Milton Keynes.

During World War Two, Bletchley Park saw key advances in the development of computing, with Alan Turing and other leading scientists and mathematicians seeking faster ways of decoding German messages.

The social media giant is giving £1m to the museum at the site, which has been facing a financial crisis.

In August, the Bletchley Park Trust revealed that it was on course for a £2m deficit this year as a result of the coronavirus crisis.

A prolonged closure and then a limit on visitor numbers since the museum reopened, due to social-distancing regulations, had forced the Trust to make cuts.

That meant 35 of the 100 jobs at the site were likely to go, and many of the activities that have made visiting a rewarding experience would have to be curtailed.

Bletchley Park: New crisis for code-breaking hub
Job losses at Bletchley Park museum
Now the donation from Facebook means some of those jobs can be saved, and the cuts in exhibitions and education programmes will not have to be so severe.

The trust has also been told it will receive £447,000 from the government's Cultural Recovery Fund, designed to help museums and arts organisations deal with the impact of coronavirus.

Bletchley Park chief executive Iain Standen said the money would make a big difference as the museum tried to adapt to challenging circumstances.

With this significant support, we at Bletchley Park can weather the current crisis and survive into the future, keeping the doors open for future generations," he said.

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