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City seeks £9m for cultural quarter
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Museums and gallery charity builds growing support to create historic and botanical precinct in central York


Julie Hemmings


Yorkshire Post






THE charity which runs some of York's flagship visitor attractions is winning support for its plans to create a new £9m "cultural quarter" in the city.
Next week the city council is expected to pledge £1.8m towards an ambitious project by York Museums Trust which would see the creation of "St Mary's Precinct", stretching from the River Ouse, through Museum Gardens and across Exhibition Square to York Theatre Royal.
York Art Gallery, run by the trust, re-opened earlier this year after a £360,000 refurbishment and now the trust's attention is focusing on the nearby Yorkshire Museum and Gardens.
Trust chief executive Janet Barnes will meet city councillors next Monday to seek financial backing as the trust prepares a bid for £5m from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). The £2.2m balance would come from other sources.
The Yorkshire Museum plans include the complete overhaul of the building and displays, with a possible extension, the restoration and upgrade of the botanical status of Museum Gardens, creating new pathways, work on St Mary's Abbey ruins and improvements to the Hospitium and observatory, to include toilets and more education and conference space.
Ms Barnes said the intention was to better link together the history and architecture of the area – from part of a Roman tower to a Barbara Hepworth sculpture – which at present do not relate to each other.
In addition to the Yorkshire Museum and York Art Gallery, the trust also runs the Castle Museum and the former St Mary's church, both near Clifford's Tower.
Acknowledging the importance of the heritage industry to York, as well as the significance of the buildings and the collections they house, in 2003 the city council drew up a 10-year strategy for the city's museums.
Priorities were:
n To attract more visitors and improve the experience of their visit, because ageing displays and increased competition had cut numbers.
n To better maintain buildings, requiring "significant investment" in the large portfolio of historically-important properties.
n To improve storage, as the collection, one of only eight general collections in Britain to be wholly designated as of national or international importance, was housed mainly in poor and inaccessible facilities.
As part of the council's support for the current project, councillors are being recommended to grant the trust 35-year leases on the art gallery and Yorkshire Museum and gardens.
Council assistant director of lifelong learning and leisure Charlie Croft said the measure was necessary as the HLF would require leases of each building with at least 30 years of the term left to run.
An earlier draft of the lease for the art gallery includes provision for the council to quickly take back land behind the gallery because at the time the document was drawn up the council was looking to build a new register office on the site.
"It is now proposed that this is removed in order to allow the trust to use the site for the proposed museums development," said Mr Croft.
 
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