Agenda item

City Museum Redevelopment

(Cabinet Member with Special Responsibility Councillor Wilkinson)

 

Report of Chief Officer Sustainable Growth  (report published 3.7.25)

Minutes:

(Cabinet Member with Special Responsibility Councillor Wilkinson)

 

Cabinet received a report from the Chief Officer Sustainable Growth that sought support for the project to redevelop the City Museum.

 

The options, options analysis, including risk assessment and officer preferred option, were set out in the report as follows:

 

 

Option 1: Do nothing

Option 2: Support a smaller scheme to re-develop the City Museum displays and public spaces

Option 3: Support scheme for full redevelopment of the City Museum.

Advantages

Cheaper in the short term

Will refresh the public offer of the City Museum and increase its visitor numbers, helping to increase income and support the High Street

Will refresh the public offer, create new public spaces, visitor footfall, income, opening hours, staffing levels and school visits. At the same time support the visitor economy (helping to retain visitors to Eden within the district) and the High Street (helping reduce anti-social behaviour in Market Square) and support community building/cohesion and wellbeing. Opportunity to create links with the Library next door for an enhanced cultural offer.

Disadvantages

Museum Service and City Museum building will continue to deteriorate and become unfit for purpose.

City Museum building in need of significant infrastructure repair and improvements (minimum £0.5m over the next 10 years). Significant damage to the building has been caused by water ingress, which has

also damaged collections. Building currently has poor public facilities (e.g. no toilets), poor accessibility (e.g.no lift). Redisplaying the museum will not provide enough income to significantly increase staffing levels and opening hours or reduce spend through energy efficiencies.

Will require considerable Council resources in terms of officer time. Will require the City Museum to close for around 3 years from 2029-32. Will mean long-term borrowing on the part of the Council (although the intention is that this will be repaid from the increase in museum income).

Risks

Museum Service will become unsustainable and will cease to exist with negative consequences for Lancaster High Street, Visitor Economy, local communities, local schools and the future of the museum collections.

Council has to pay the full cost of building repairs and infrastructure improvements (such as re-wiring) and new displays. Museums unable to develop income to the point where it supports +50% of museum turnover or can cover the costs of borrowing to support museum developments. City Museum becomes unfit for purpose due to inaccessibility and lack of public facilities.

That the City Museum redevelopment is not as successful as planned and the liability for the debt repayment returns to the Council from museum budgets.

 

Option 3 is the officer preferred option – detailed work by Barker Langham established that a larger-scale redevelopment project had the greatest chance of success and of securing the museum and the building into the future. The Museum Service Review established that the City Museum building and displays require significant investment in order to support the sustainability of the City Museums and become the flagship for the district’s heritage that it has the potential to become, telling the amazing and unique story of the area and its people.

 

Councillor Wilkinson proposed, seconded by Councillor Bottoms:-

 

“That the recommendations, as set out in the report, be approved.”

 

Councillors then voted:-

 

Resolved:

 

(7 Members (Councillors Bottoms, Hamilton-Cox, Hart, Caroline Jackson, Peter Jackson, Riches & Wilkinson) voted in favour, and 1 Member  (Councillor Tyldesley) abstained.)

 

(1)        That the draft Expression of Interest (EOI) is approved with permission given to the Chief Officer for Sustainable Growth in consultation with the Portfolio Holder to make any minor amendments before submission to the National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF).

 

(2)        That, following notification of a successful EOI, £95,000 is allocated from Council Reserves to support the work required before any Development Phase application to the NLHF can be made.

 

(3)        That the decision on whether to submit the Development Phase application to NLHF will be a future Cabinet decision.

 

Officer responsible for effecting the decision:

 

Chief Officer Sustainable Growth

 

Reasons for making the decision:

 

It is in the long-term interests of the Council to progress the work to redevelop the City Museum and its building (Lancaster’s old Town Hall) by supporting the submission of an Expression of Interest to National Lottery Heritage Fund and approving the funds needed to develop a Development Phase application.

 

The redevelopment of the City Museum and consequent increase in sustainability for the City Museum(s) supports the Council Plan in three main ways:

 

3.3 Access to Culture & Leisure – project ‘Developing a vision and action plan for the City Museums’

4.1 Value for money – part of the Fit for the Future/OBR project

2.4 Investment & Regeneration

 

The project also supports the Council’s Culture & Heritage Vision.

 

Supporting documents: