Keighley Bus Museum wants to attract private sponsorship to pay for the upkeep of the vehicles it bought from Bradford's Transperience collection.

The bus museum is preparing to send out a newly compiled colour leaflet to local businesses in the hope of securing sponsorship. The museum needs the money to pay for the restoration and upkeep of the nine vintage buses it bought with Lottery Heritage Fund help from the Transperience collection which collapsed financially.

Keighley Bus Museum Director Nigel Ward explains: "These vehicles are owned by the charity and we need sponsorship to restore them and keep the vehicles running. A lot of bus museums run on similar lines to ourselves where there are a series of private owners and a number of buses owned by themselves."

Fellow director Graham Mitchell says since the museum acquired the transperience vehicles, collectors have been eager to register with the bus museum. "Bus owners have appeared out of the woodwork and brought their buses so we now have 20 new buses at the Dalton Lane warehouse, as well as the original 30 at the depot in Denholme," he says.

With a collection of 50 buses and private owners joining all the time, the bus museum is currently considering the feasibility of moving to a purpose-built depot, possibly in the centre of Keighley.

Mr Ward says: "We have two objectives. We want to find permanent accommodation in Keighley as well as getting new members and donations in."

A handful of the Transperience buses are now being restored at the Denholme depot, and members hope to have them up and running for the traditional Christmas Day service. The bus museum's AGM took place yesterday at the Royal Oak, Haworth.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.