Gloucester Waterways Museum to lose national status.
ONE of Gloucester's most popular museums is to lose its national status, it has emerged.
The National Waterways Museum at Gloucester Docks is to become the Gloucester Waterways Museum in the summer due to a restructuring by the Waterways Trust, which runs the museum.
Roger Hanbury, chief executive at the Waterways Trust, is seeing the move as a positive step for the museum and for the city.
He said: "It will bring the museum back to Gloucester, there will be a much more local focus.
"There has not been a reduction in funding at all. We will now be progressively changing the museum over the course of time, introducing more and more Gloucester artifacts."
He added that the museum has experienced better times of late, after it was threatened with closure last year due to financial difficulties.
"Since the Quays Designer Outlet was built, visitor numbers have risen by around 30 per cent," he added.
"The thing is, it was like a building site down here when they were developing it, so no one came to the museum.
"With this change we have a new purpose. The decision is about making museums like this one work.
"We have come through tough times and we are now looking forward to the future."
Barry Leach, chairman of the Gloucester City Centre Community Partnership, believes the move is paving the way for a bright future for the museum.
He said: "I think it is the best way for the museum to survive.
"Although it would be nice for it to be a national museum, it's not necessarily the best option.
"Being the Gloucester Waterways Museum it will be much more community-led too, which has got to be a good thing.
"The museum has improved of late and they are getting more visitors than this time last year so it is working."
3 Comments
by Ian, Cheltenham
Wednesday, March 17 2010, 12:06AM
“And so the process of winding down the waterways museum in preparation for its closure and conversion to yet more flats begins.”
by jas, quedgeley
Tuesday, March 16 2010, 10:04PM
“There were more coaches parked in the docks car park last summer than I can ever recall.In fact on several Saturday's there were 8 or 9 coaches in the docks and several more in Westgate street car/coach park
But this highlights another problem.
The coach parking in the docks has been scrapped.This makes no sense to me as I could not think of a better place to drop of hundreds of visitors-midway between the Quays and the city centre- a perfect spot you would have thought.
Visitors to the Quays are often seen wandering around the docks,but due to the lack of attractions they often spend no more than few minutes there (this highlights what a loss the Merchants Quays units were).
Some stroll into the city centre but a fair number appear put off by the "building site" adjacent to Victoria basin (the timing of this and linkages work could not have been worse) and turn back towards the Quays.
Surely some of the South west regional development ageny funds could have been used to attract and help set up visitor attractions to the docks.
I hope that the ground floor units of the new Merchants quay development are used in an appropriate way - this may be the last chance to save the docks as a visitor attraction.”
by Kay Powell, Tredworth
Tuesday, March 16 2010, 3:17PM
“So, the chief executive of the Waterways Trust sees this as a positive step. Deluded or what? There was a time when the Docks was a real tourist attraction, rather than a housing estate. Coach loads of tourists visited there. If you can't pull in the tourists, you will lose important tourist attractions - it's a vicious circle.”