1.  NEED TO REPLACE THE MUSEUM

  NMGW has been anxious to redevelop the Welsh Industrial & Maritime Museum (WIMM) since it opened in 1977. Until the decision to build the Central Block at Cathays Park (opened in October 1993), this was indeed always the Museum's first capital priority. It was naturally assumed that WIMM would be rebuilt on its own site but, when the Millennium Commission declined to fund the Opera House, the Director—part of the team which proposed the Wales Millennium Centre (WMC)—recommended that a new WIMM (the "Waterfront Museum") should be developed as part of WMC; NMGW's Council unanimously agreed.

2.  DECISION TO SELL THE SITE

  On 29 October 1996 (four days after the annual meeting of our Court), the Chairman and Chief Executive of Cardiff Bay Development Corporation (CBDC) informed us that the Corporation wished to buy our site so that Sovereign Land could build a shopping centre on it. NMGW accepted the proposal in principle, subject to the proviso that, should "both WMC and the funding for the Museum's stand-alone project fell through, the Museum could only contemplate moving if the full cost of reinstatement were to be funded". We were told that, in such an event, Associated British Ports and CBDC would be willing to offer alternative sites.

3.  THE SELLING PRICE

  NMGW and CBDC jointly commissioned surveyors to estimate reinstatement costs, which ranged between £7.3 million and £28 million. At first, CBDC offered us £1.5 million, and its Chief Executive wrote to insist that they could not possibly pay more. But Council determined—on 25 April 1997—that £7.3 million would be the minimum sum acceptable.

  Later, CBDC accepted that the purchase price had to be based on the cost of equivalent reinstatement as if under a Compulsory Purchase Order. But it still placed this sum at no more than £4 million (as Council were informed on 17 October 1997). After the involvement of the Chief Estates Officer at the Welsh Office, however, a formula was agreed giving a total figure of £7.5 million (£4.5 million on completion, £3 million in succeeding years).

  On 26 November 1997, the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) rejected NMGW's bid to build the Waterfront Museum in the WMC. It seems that the Heritage Trustees' most serious concerns had been about our architectural and financial involvement with the Centre. Indeed, HLF officials had seriously criticised WMC's bid on behalf of NMGW as early as March 1997.

4.  DECISION TO SELL BEFORE HAVING ALTERNATIVE SITE

  On 12 December 1997 Council considered seven alternative options for the way forward:

(a)  To continue to plan its Waterfront Museum as part of the Wales Millennium Centre, seeking to raise funding from sources other than the HLF;

(b)  To reduce the scale of the Waterfront Museum, omitting the IMAX Theatre (which had not appealed to the HLF Trustees);

(c)  To retain the Waterfront Museum in the WMC, but to make it organisationally distinct from it;

(d)  To consider alternative (and previously rejected) sites in Cardiff Bay;

(e)  To look again at the possibility of placing the museum in the Pierhead Building;

(f)  To retain its existing site, seeking HLF funding for restoring the building and Oval Basin; and

(g)  To look at sites outside Cardiff, such as Swansea (which—as the second city of Wales—has the advantages of a large population and healthy numbers of museum visitors), Newport, Port Talbot, etc.

  Council opted for Option C—to build the museum in the Millennium Centre but to make it organisationally and financially independent of the company running WMC.

  At its meeting on 24 April, however, Council was informed that there was little hope of HLF giving a grant to a museum in the WMC. It decided to sell the WIMM site for £7.5 million, and to do everything possible to buy the last remaining plot of land in the Inner Harbour area (a 100 yards or so to the north of the existing WIMM). Subsequently, we have become concerned that this site may be too small, though CBDC have not yet been able to provide an accurate acreage; the decision not to return water to the Oval Basin also make it less than ideal for any kind of maritime museum.

  We are therefore looking at other options in Cardiff Bay (none of which is as close to the centre of the Inner Harbour as we would wish) and elsewhere. We see Swansea as a particularly strong contender, with a larger and more successful industrial and maritime museum than WIMM, and a very enthusiastic County Council. The Council might well donate the site connecting the Industrial & Maritime Museum with the Swansea Museum.

5.  COLLECTIONS CENTRE

  By December 1997, our exhaustive search to find a store to rent for five years, in which to locate a Collections Centre for our industrial and other reference material, had not borne fruit; so we decided to purchase a building with excellent access and ample room for development at £2.25 million. At Nantgarw, on the northern edge of Cardiff, this allows NMGW, for the first time ever, to assemble in one place all its industrial and maritime collections—which for decades have been kept at a number of sites (many of them highly unsuitable).

  After four months of moving the WIMM collections into this, the Nantgarw Collections Centre will be accessible to students and researchers regularly, and to the general public occasionally. This is a big step forward in improving access to our reserve collections.

6.  CONSULTATION ON INDUSTRY POLICY

  While all this has been happening, NMGW has drawn up a consultation document entitled "Wales—The First Industrial Nation Improving Access to NMGW's Industrial Collections". This was launched on 4 June 1998 and encompasses a number of strands:

(a)  developing our collections to include modern material;

(b)  bringing our undisplayed industrial collections together in the new Collections Centre;

(c)  demonstrating industry in context, probably in partnership with Big Pit Mining Museum;

(d)  creating a new museum, not necessarily in Cardiff Bay, as a successor to WIMM but telling a much broader industrial and maritime story, and acting as a gateway to other industrial and maritime museums in Wales; and

(e)  developing partnerships with other organisations to tell a fuller story of Welsh industry.

  We are asking for responses to this document by the end of September.

7.  A NEW LOCATION FOR THE WATERFRONT MUSEUM

  For the last thirteen years, it has been assumed that a redeveloped Welsh Industrial & Maritime Museum would be sited in Cardiff Bay. But the location we have so far preferred—in Bute Place, opposite the old Post Office building—now seems likely to be only half an acre in area. Though we could just get our planned development on such a small site, it would be very cramped, offering no possibility of later extension. There could be no open-air areas and, with no water in the Oval Basin, no water-based activities or floating exhibits.

  We have therefore considered three other sites in and around Cardiff Bay:

1.  Old Post Office/John Cory Building. The Aspros Brothers, who own these and a plot of land behind them, plan a 20-24 storey commercial development incorporating both these listed buildings. They have suggested that we might build our new museum in the historic buildings plus, perhaps, parts of the lower floors of the new building. As the general view is that planning approval for a tower block is unlikely to be given, this proposal seems very speculative indeed. The site is even further from water than Bute Place;

2.  The Graving Docks. The Belfast-based company Sheridan, which is developing and operating IMAX theatres, has expressed an interest in placing one in the Graving Docks. According to CBDC's Chief Executive, they might provide "up to 40,000 square feet of exhibition space". After our experiences of trying to work with a private developer, and the Heritage Lottery Fund's concerns about IMAX, Council has recommended that this option should not be pursued;

3.  Queen Alexandra Head. Grosvenor Waterside can offer land at c £400,000-£500,000 per acre alongside the eastern end of the Barrage, where a small visitor centre will be sited. Though this is visually quite close to the Inner Harbour, it is actually about a mile's journey away, and we doubt if it can attract the required numbers of visitors. Grosvenor Waterside has made it clear that more central sites would cost a great deal more; one which appealed to us will be sold for between £3,000,000 and £4,000,000.

  It is thus beginning to appear that it may be too late to find an acceptable location in the Bay. One result of the considerable publicity about the closure of WIMM is that we have had offers of sites in no less than thirteen places in Wales: Barry, Blaenavon, Caernarfon, Llanelli, Merthyr Tydfil, Milford, Newport, Pembroke, Pontypridd, Porthcawl, Pwllheli and Swansea. As a preliminary to investigating these, we have drawn up four criteria for an acceptable location:

(a)  It must have an appropriate industrial and maritime history;

(b)  It must be alongside water;

(c)  It must have a realistic chance of attracting at least 200,000 visitors per annum; and

(d)  It must have a supportive local authority (preferably one with whom we can enter into partnership).

  On 17 July 1998, NMGW Council considered most of these sites (two were not suggested until after that date) in the light of a preliminary appraisal by Cooke & Arkwright. As a result, though we shall continue to explore them all throughout the Industrial Policy Consultation, we believe that three are most likely to be able to meet the criteria: Cardiff (Queen Alexandra Head), Swansea (between Swansea Museum and Swansea Industral & Maritime Museum) and Caernarfon (Victoria Dock).

8.  SWANSEA INDUSTRIAL & MARITIME MUSEUM

  As part of the surprisingly Cardiff-centred media criticism of the WIMM closure, it was more than once suggested that "there is no longer anywhere in the country where children can learn about the industrial and maritime history of Wales". This entirely ignores NMGW's Welsh Slate Museum (Llanberis), which has just opened a £2.1 million development, and the Museum of the Welsh Woollen Industry (Drefach-Felindre), where we have spent £100,000 capital in 1997-98. There is a network of local industrial and/or maritime museums around Wales, including Rhondda Heritage Park and Big Pit. In particular, Swansea's Industrial & Maritime Museum—in a listed historic warehouse beside a dock in which are moored three historic boats (including a steam tug)—is twice as big as WIMM and achieves considerably higher visitor numbers than WIMM ever has.

  Swansea Industrial & Maritime Museum, whose listed waterside building is about twice the size of WIMM, has done more to enliven itself than WIMM, and thus attracts annual visitor numbers of over 100,000 (compared to WIMM's approximately 70,000). In the past, it has had as many as 220,000 visitors in a year. Its exhibits include a working woollen mill (from Neath), three floating historic vessels (including a steam tugboat), etc. The Swansea Industrial & Maritime Museum has an important collection of metalliferous samples, products and plant models, local, social and urban history objects, photographs, archives, ships, ship models and ship portraits. Generally, there is surprisingly little overlap with WIMM collections, largely because Swansea has always collected from West Glamorgan and from the non-ferrous and tinplate industries, areas in which WIMM has been less active, having concentrated on collecting from the remainder of South Wales and from the coal, iron and steel industries.

  Behind the Industrial & Maritime Museum (whose main building is a twenty-one bay banana warehouse) is a 5.94 acre flat site, currently used as a car park. Adjoining this are the Swansea Museum (originally the Royal Institution of South Wales, a Grade 2* listed 1839-41 Greek Revival building by Frederick Long) and Swansea Leisure Centre—which attracts more than 800,000 visitors a year, the highest number of any site in Wales. From preliminary discussions with officers of Swansea City Council, it appears that the Council might well be prepared to donate the car park as a site for the new Waterfront Museum.

  All this means that NMGW sees Swansea as a particularly stong candidate for our new Waterfront Museum. But a great deal of work will have to be done on appraising this and other sites—in particular, Cardiff Bay and Caernarfon—before such a decision can be made. Council would, however, like to reach an in principle decision at its meeting on 17 October 1998.

Colin Ford
Director

24 July 1998