Closure of MOSI, National Media Museum and National Railway Museum

just had a look again at the Network Rail website for the trackworks due there soon, www.ordsallchord.co.uk
The museum atttracts most of its visitors because of the railway. The trackworks are going to leave the museum cut off from the railway network, with about a quarter of its current running line left available.

Let’s just put this in to context…

This is the oldest passenger railway station in not just Manchester, Lancashire, NW England, The UK, or Europe… It is the very first intercity passenger railway station in the world ever! This site is very much responsible for the prosperity of Manchester as a Victorian city, therefore driving the second industrial revolution, therefore driving the sweeping socio-economic changes that created modern Britain, therefore underpinning the strength of the Empire and leading to the founding of The Commonwealth.
There is a section of viaduct that is not listed, this is the part that they are going to demolish to drive the Ordsall Curve right through the site. In doing so, the Grade 1 listed bridge over the Irwell that leads in to the station approach will be separated from the site. The adjacent viaducts which were built slightly later are also scheduled for obliteration, thus removing most of the surrounding historical context.

This will close the museum as it will annihilate visitor numbers.

Thre are quite simply too many museums. The whole country seems to be one huge museum. Many of them started by wonderfully dedicated and focused individuals or groups whose interest and pre-occupation, all too often turns out to be a primarily minority interest and pre-occupation.

Too much of this countries present is rooted in the past. By all means remember and preserve as much of the past as may be worth saving but, not ad infinitum. If we ignore that, then the result will be, museum fatigue. Which appears to me to be what we have.

I stand corrected.

According to the BBC ‘closure plans’ are being denied:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-22766162

Unfortunately that was written on Tuesday… Wednesday they were sending out a different message…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-22781573

Zeb

According to the BBC ‘closure plans’ are being denied:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-22766162

I do hope a way forward is found for these museums and their staff, and any others in similar situation. However, I can’t say I’m surprised – the concept of museums being free to enter places an unbearable burden on the public purse, and is utterly unsustainable in the current (or any) financial climate. If I was the man in charge of the National Railway Museum tonight, I guarantee I’d be wishing I’d had half the visitors but they had paid to enter, and that the museum was financially secure.

We appear to live in a society where culture and history (and a host of other things) are expected to be free and accessible to all, but in practice this is an unaffordable luxury. At a museums summit in Perth a couple of years ago I had a heated exchange of views with a rather senior politician who believed small museums were unsustainable and that the future was national collections that were freely accessible to all. I disagreed. And yet ten miles from our small museum, the National Museum of Costume at Shambellie has just closed because they couldn’t justify the running costs when no money was charged at the door.

I refuse to believe that by charging a modest entry fee a national museum would lose all their visitors. Some would be lost for sure, but they would fall in to 2 categories – those who couldn’t afford to pay the entry, and those who wouldn’t pay on principle. The first category can gladly be accomodated with student/unemployed/OAP discount or free entry, but the second group are no loss. We participated in ‘Doors Open Day’ locally, where we were a free museum for the day. We hoped for a stampede of local families who perhaps couldn’t afford to visit normally, but instead we had a really impressive turnout of retired teachers, doctors etc in their BMW’s who stayed for an hour and then took off. When asked why they were leaving so soon, the popular response was they had other museums to get round whilst they were free!

What really gets my goat about today’s announcement is that it didn’t take a rocket scientist to realise that when the country ran out of cash that museums would be a fairly easy target for cost cutting. And yet today we get the news that a possible closure is imminent! Why didn’t they start charging again 2 years ago to save themselves? Are our national collections sufficiently mis-managed that those in charge can’t see the money running out?

Rant over….

After all, you pay £9 to get into the Minster in the same city- at first I objected to paying to get into a church, but when you see the scale and cost of the ongoing renovation, you quickly change your mind….

The renovation will never end, since the Minster is on loan from the Catholic Church, and has to be returned, once the work is finished.

The only one with which I am familiar is the superb Railway Museum in York, and I don’t think anyone one would seriously object to paying for entry, as opposed to the ‘voluntary’ donations they currently collect.

After all, you pay £9 to get into the Minster in the same city- at first I objected to paying to get into a church, but when you see the scale and cost of the ongoing renovation, you quickly change your mind….

Sadly this evening it was announced in the news that either the NRM (National Railway Museum)at York or Shildon will have to close down in July due to government cuts.How many more of our national collections are going to be affected in a knock on effect ?? not just Railway museums but all our heritage is being hit ??.

Mike E

Head of the Science Museum group has confirmed that one of the museums could close…

science-museum-group-boss-confirms MOSI could be closed

Petition to save here, please sign and share if you are so inclined 🙂

Manchester Evening News Petition

Zeb

The following interview on the topic from today reinforces post #17 & #18 can be found on the Museum Association website here – if the cut goes ahead the implication is that one of the four sites in the north will close!

Nobody says these museums are closing,

Maybe not identified which museum, but a senior Science Museum executive did say today on Radio 4 The World at One programme that closing a museum IS being considerd. The cuts they’ve had to make have hurt and they are being asked to make more which means one of the Northen museums will have to be closed (personally I’d close the one in London but maybe that’s because I’m a Mancunian).
I fear its sabre rattling on the behalf of the museum and that the Government will call their bluff. After all just how many Conservative MP are there in Greater Manchester?

Nobody says these museums are closing,

Maybe not identified which museum, but a senior Science Museum executive did say today on Radio 4 The World at One programme that closing a museum IS being considerd. The cuts they’ve had to make have hurt and they are being asked to make more which means one of the Northen museums will have to be closed (personally I’d close the one in London but maybe that’s because I’m a Mancunian).
I fear its sabre rattling on the behalf of the museum and that the Government will call their bluff. After all just how many Conservative MP are there in Greater Manchester?

Gentlemen,

Nobody says these museums are closing, maybe we should therefore not assume that they are.

Try to keep it drama free.

Enjoy the weather!

Free entry to museums in the UK should only be on the production of a British Passport. (I appriciate this will disenfrancise some residents who pay UK taxes -sorry)

The entry charges at Duxford don’t seem to do their gates any harm. I think the Manston History Museum should and could charge a bit more than the £1.50 it currently does.

Open up a new museum at Manchester airport using the Concorde as the centrepiece and add some iconic North West products like the Lightning -HS125-Canberra and Tornado!

Lots of hangar space at Woodford for that. Flight sheds would be ideal.

The only one with which I am familiar is the superb Railway Museum in York, and I don’t think anyone one would seriously object to paying for entry, as opposed to the ‘voluntary’ donations they currently collect.

After all, you pay £9 to get into the Minster in the same city- at first I objected to paying to get into a church, but when you see the scale and cost of the ongoing renovation, you quickly change your mind….

Indeed; making the nationals free had a significant impact on the smaller, volunteer based collections that didn’t have that luxury. Why pay £20 – £30 to go round a museum like Newark, or Mosquito Museum as a family, when you can easily travel to a national and get in for free.

There is of course much more to it than that – but a level playing field would be welcome….

MH,

In my personal opinion free entry at the ‘nationals’ is OK when times are good and the funding stream is well fed – however when times get tough, as they are now and cuts start to be made that’s when things get difficult.

Pressure on funding comes in all sorts of ways and you’ve already seen some collections trying to generate further income e.g. car parking fees etc.; sadly IMHO it was almost inevitable that such things were likely to happen.

Don’t forget that some of the collections involved have already had significant investment from the HLF e.g. The Works at NRM at York.

Free entry does have a significant impact on the independent museum sector and I have commented on this about these parts several times in the past.

The biggest impact is the expectation from visitors that they should be allowed in for free to every museum, which can be very difficult to deal with. Especially when you have a Shop full of people wanting to get into say Cockpit-Fest and someone says it should be free – been there done that and sent explanatory emails and letters to try and pacify disgruntled visitors!!

Open up a new museum at Manchester airport using the Concorde as the centrepiece and add some iconic North West products like the Lightning -HS125-Canberra and Tornado!