NCC Cabinet meets tomorrow, Tuesday 8 October at 10am, (streamed here) to discuss taking management of Northumberland’s museums into a local authority partnership managed by Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums (TWAM) in Newcastle. A press release was issued at 5.10pm on Friday 4 October to that effect.
Museum provision in Berwick will then be delivered through a partnership comprising English Heritage, the King’s Own Scottish Borderers (KOSB), the Maltings (Berwick) and NCC through the Living Barracks project. This was endorsed by the Council’s Cabinet in May 2023.
NCC’s press release states that the proposed expansion of the TWAM partnership will ‘provide economies of scale and increase organisational resilience’, however the announcement does not detail the amount of money involved nor savings to be made.
Museums in the county are currently run by the Woodhorn Charitable Trust, known as Museums Northumberland, operating sites across the county including the Woodhorn Museum in Ashington, Hexham’s Old Gaol, the Moot Hall, House of Correction, Morpeth’s Chantry Bagpipe Museum and Berwick Museum and Art Gallery.
All three Berwick NCC councillors were contacted for comment. Georgina Hill, Independent Berwick East Councillor, said:
‘The Administration planned to just sneak this decision through without it going to scrutiny committee.They eventually had to relent but it was put to a closed session. It is the last item on a long cabinet agenda tomorrow and I don’t expect any meaningful or robust discussion.
‘I really do not know why but I worry why they have decided to hand the management of Northumberland’s museums and cultural assets to Newcastle. Berwick has a different model and this appears to be borne out of vindictiveness over Museums Northumberland not playing ball over the troubled Barracks project.’
Residents in Berwick are concerned that the Burrell collection items which were gifted to the town by Sir William Burrell – around 50 paintings and 300 decorative items given as Berwick was the closest town to his baronial residence at nearby Hutton Castle – may be removed from the town. The collection is currently housed at the Barracks in Berwick Museum and Art Gallery.
In 2012 then Director of The Woodhorn Trust, Keith Merrin, said of a Burrell show: ‘it has been brilliant to see so many local people and visitors alike coming to see this fantastic art collection which belongs to the town of Berwick but is not as well known as perhaps it should be.’
Berwick Town Council was contacted for comment and say that, as they were not consulted by NCC regarding the Berwick Museum and Art Gallery, they do not have a view on the matter.
Details of Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting including full agenda and background here
The meeting will be streamed on youtube here ; click through to ‘Meeting of Cabinet on Tuesday 8 October at 10am’
Councillor Hill worries that the proposals being considered by NCC Cabinet today will hand the management of Northumberland’s museums and cultural assets to Newcastle, including that of Berwick’s Town Museum and its Burrell collection. The opposite is the case.
The proposals make clear that:
• Museum provision in Berwick will in future be delivered in Berwick – rather than from Newcastle or, indeed, from Woodhorn as now – through the Living Barracks partnership.
• Berwick’s Town Museum, including the Burrell collection, will not be taken away from Berwick but will be housed in the Barracks, in the new museum which forms part of its redevelopment.
• Far from being ‘troubled’, the Living Barracks project continues to proceed as planned.
The proposals are an opportunity for Berwick to grasp, not to oppose.
Philip has the rose tints set to maximum…All of us want Berwick to succeed but it won’t be achieved by pretending everything is fine when it quite clearly isn’t.
To say that the Living Barracks project is in any way on track is laughable.
One small example,we still have not had a single screening in the Mobstore Cinema despite being available since May.The knock on effect in terms of a permanent home for the Berwick Archive is heading towards a 2-3 year delay.There is still no residential partner for the main project which is business critical.
This latest decision does nothing to reassure locals,according to NCC we have got it wrong and it will all be explained to us.
Northumberland Museums have been well and truly dumped having delivered a quality product and good value at less than £600,000 PA from a hard working,committed Team.
The logical decision would be to fully support the current Team who understand the local dynamics.
Everyone knows they are being punished for challenging overall strategy ,to say they chose not to engage is totally disingenuous,reality is they were excluded from key decision making sessions and generally sidelined.
Cllr Hill is right in what she says,this is a very strange decision,it stinks and needs properly investigating.
I am well aware that Berwick has a separate arrangement than the rest of Northumberland – that is reflected in my comments ..
Isn’t it amazing on this site that the words ‘residents’, or ‘locals’ as Ian Madeley says. only refer to people who have the same views on the authors? Even when addressing people who might otherwise be thought of as residents and locals on the basis of… living and working or volunteering in Berwick?
What can be the cause of this?
Is it that volunteers, youth workers, artists, local businesses, councillors, churches, heritage bodies et al are united in some conspiracy to confuse and control the good people of Berwick?
Or is it that a small minority of middle class people in the town are unable to distinguish between their interests and those of the community around them? Almost as if engaged in some strange hobby of stopping things merely for the sense of power it gives them.
It really is so very hard to tell. May I suggest this as a future poll that we could hold on this website?
Not quite sure what point you are making here but do you honestly feel that dumping Museums Northumberland is a positive step?They do a great job,are cost effective and have very committed team plus a boss who lives a few yards from the Barracks!Have you spoken to anyone there out of interest to understand their view and to hear how they have been treated?