Campaign News

'Desperate' Council Tries to Find Use and Justification for Proposed Public Building

While the Manor House museum is being closed due to lack of money to keep it running, the Borough of Bury St Edmunds is planning to build the biggest white elephant Suffolk has ever seen for £12 million pounds.

	New plan for Venue

The 'public venue' at the heart of Centros Miller's plans still has no apparent purpose or use. In a desperate attempt to justify this pointless building, Jerry Massey (St Edmundsbury Councils head of Planning) has suggest that the theatrical company attached to the Theatre Royal should use the venue, while the towns theatre is being renovated. What use it will have after the Theatre Royal is renovated has not been made clear.

Pure Pantomime

As pantomime turns to high farce, it begs the question why not scrap the whole 'public venue' idea and build a brand new 21st century museum on the Cattle-Market development site? The curse laid upon the Cattle-Market only excludes anything built or involving Debenhams, Centros Miller or the Miller Group. Alternative development proposals for the Cattle-Market, by different developers, are in no way affected by the curse; as long as it is in keeping with the interests of St Edmund, the people of Bury St Edmunds and the sacred geometry of the town.

How about a 21st century museum we can all be proud of?

The people of Bury may note that Norwich Museum and Colchester Museums are both housed in 11th century castles and that Ipswich and the Fitzwilliam Museum are 19th century buildings. A move to the Guildhall is also unfeasible as it is a 13th century building that is unsuitable for a museum.

If St Edmundsbury were to redevelop the Cattle-Market around a brand new 21st century purpose built regional museum, Bury St Edmunds would gain an asset that would be the envy of these larger towns, an attraction to draw people into the town and a source of justified civic pride. Furthermore, it could be the centre piece of a more modest and sympathetic development, which would justify keeping much of the car parking upon the site. Perhaps a more modest development might include a new 5 star Everard's Hotel and a Wednesday Farmer's market rather than the monstrous and soulless Thurrock-style shopping mall and Debenham's superstore?

Why West Stow is a bad idea

The idea of moving the Manor House museum to West Stow is an absolute non-starter because it is not a secure location for such a collection, it is within a mile of the most robbed archaeology site in the United Kingdom and it is very difficult to get to by public transport.

A move to West Stow is also short sighted as the Anglo-Saxon village is almost 20 years old. Archaeologist will tell you, earth-fast built timber buildings only last one generation before they will rot and collapse. This will be a very interesting experiment from an archaeological point of view, to watch them collapse, but a bit difficult for the majority of people to understand. In short, it will be necessary to completely rebuild West Stow Anglo-Saxon village in the next 15 to 20 years, at a not inconsiderable expense to the Council Tax payers of St Edmundsbury.

The benefits of a new museum on the Cattle-Market site

• A new purpose built museum would be better for the collections of the Borough of St Edmundsbury.
• A new purpose built museum would be cheaper to the run.
• It would allow all of St Edmundsbury's collections to be concentrated in one location.
• The site is easily accessible by public transport and Bury is at the centre of the region.
• It could serve as a regional training centre for museum staff from other East Anglian museums.
• It could act as a regional archaeological centre for conservation and storage for several counties.
• It could be made secure enough and insured for major international quality exhibitions of archaeological or historical material, which currently can not be displayed in the county because of the lack of a suitable exhibition space.
• It would be a major regional tourist attraction.

The kinds of material that could be exhibited in such a museum include the Hoxne hoard, the Mildenhall treasure and the Sutton Hoo material, all currently displayed in the British Museum in London. Furthermore, it would allow the loan of material such as the Bury Cross and the Bury Psalter, currently in New York museums, to be displayed in the town where they were made.

If a new 21st century museum is such an implausible idea, why has Lincoln City Council done exactly this?

http://www.thecollection.lincoln.museum/

It cost the city of Lincoln £12 million pounds to build their new museum, exactly the same amount of money that Cllr. Griffiths and Mr Massey want to waste upon their pointless white elephant, which they have yet to find a use for.