SOME of Scotland’s most loved museums fear they could be forced to close unless there’s an “urgent intervention” by the Scottish Government.
In a joint statement, Industrial Museums Scotland, the Scottish Community Heritage Alliance and Museums Heritage Highland have urged ministers to deliver a financial relief package for the sector.
Independent museums get very little money from government and make most of their funding through visitors and education programmes between April and September.
Since the lockdown, museums say reserves have rapidly depleted, with half of them saying they expect to hit crisis point before the end of summer.
And with some form of social distancing likely to be in place until a vaccine is discovered, the museums could even be closed to visitors until next year.
The museums say any package would be “minimal in terms of the wider crisis funding but would be hugely beneficial to Scotland’s heritage and its communities.”
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David Mann, the chair of Industrial Museums Scotland museums, whose 13 members include the National Mining Museum in Newtongrange, New Lanark World Heritage Site, Discovery Point and Eastriggs’s Devil’s Porridge Museum, said: “Closing indefinitely at a time when we generate the bulk of our annual operating income has put the future of many of our independent museums on a
cliff’s edge. “
He added: “Our growing concern is that this additional support for the independent museum sector will come too late, after some members have closed permanently, staff have been made redundant and charities wound up. Others will need to make redundancies, cut wages, and mothball historic buildings and Nationally Significant collections to try and survive until the 2021 season.
“The impact of this on the sector will be irreversible, putting Nationally Significant collections at risk and, most importantly, decimating staff, destroying team dynamics and ending careers.”
Dan Cottam from Museum Heritage Highland, who represent museums across the Highlands, including Groan House Museum, and the
Highland Museum of Childhood said his members were already working from “particularly meagre means.”
“Whilst the size, self-sufficiency and resilience of the Highland sector has allowed us to react quickly to the initial crisis, the medium to long term picture is daunting,” he said.
Catherine Gillies from the Scottish Community Heritage Alliance said Scotland’s reputation as a “world leader” in heritage was in danger as a result.
Losing it, she said, “would have impacts on the economy, tourism and community health out of all proportion to the cost of saving it.”
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