Museums and heritage

Museum workers in Liverpool will take part in 30 days of strikes over the summer as part of an ongoing dispute over pay.

The BBC reports that walkouts by members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union will affect National Museums Liverpool (NML) sites from next month.

A total of 56 days of action have already taken place in a dispute over a cost-of-living payment.

The PCS union says NML is the only government employer not to pay its staff an agreed-upon £1,500 cost-of-living payment. 

However, Laura Pye, Director of NML, recently claimed that 10 out of 15 National Museums services could not fulfil the payment.

An offer by NML for a £750 one-off non-consolidated payment, an increase in annual leave to 30 days plus Bank Holidays alongside other measures, was previously rejected.

The Museum of Liverpool, the World Museum, the International Slavery Museum, the Maritime Museum, the Walker Gallery, and Sudley House are among the sites affected.

PCS General Secretary Fran Heathcote said members love their jobs but "are angry and feel undervalued".
 

A 19th-Century Hampshire windmill that houses a display of historic farming artefacts has closed following the withdrawal of council funding from its operator.

Eastleigh Borough Council terminated its funding agreement with Hampshire Culture Trust (HCT) in February last year.

The trust then requested that Hampshire County Council (HCC) allow it to end operations at the Grade II-listed Bursledon Windmill.

HCT has been responsible for providing the council’s museum and heritage services since 2014, the same year that the windmill had its wind shaft and sails replaced following a £94,000 Heritage Lottery Fund grant.

A report found that the trust had made efforts to keep the windmill open by diversifying revenue through grants, donations or commercial opportunities but said it would not be "sufficient to support the financial viability of the venue".

The historic items displayed at the windmill may now be transferred to the authority or a new operator.

Earlier this year, HCT warned that five more venues, out of the 24 it operates, face closure after HCC, its primary funder, proposed reducing its annual funding from £2.5m to £1.9m by 2027.

The trust, an ACE National Portfolio Organisation, said Ashcroft Arts Centre in Fareham, Westbury Manor Museum and Eastleigh Museum are expected to shut early next year, while Curtis Museum in Alton and Andover Museum and the Museum of the Iron Age are facing withdrawal by 2026.

A museum in Wales has launched a public appeal to help it remain open in the face of soaring energy bills.

Llandudno Museum says its costs have quadrupled, and the grant funding it receives does not cover the rise.

"It is definitely a threat because at the moment our energy bills are in the region of £35,000 a year, which is astronomic," Director Dawn Lancaster told ITV News

"We can't turn everything off because we have to have stable conditions to maintain the artefacts in the building."

The museum reopened in 2022 after a £1.6m redevelopment scheme partly funded by a Heritage Lottery Fund grant, with the remainder of the money coming mostly in grants from other charitable bodies, and an annual grant from Llandudno Town Council.

It says it needs to raise £80,000 by October.
 

York Museums Trust (YMT) has revealed it lost £400,000 in revenue because one of its sites was closed for three months following the discovery of reinforced autoclaved concrete (RAAC).

The Castle Museum, housed in the former York County Gaol, was shut between September and December while undergoing remedial works to deal with RAAC from a roof installed in the 1980s.

In a report due to be presented to councillors on 9 April, Kathryn Blacker, Chief Executive of York Museums Trust, said that despite reopening on 8 December, the museum suffered losses over the Christmas period as it was not able to fully market its intended programme of events.

Blacker added: "We had to drop our prices in this period, and we had much lower visitor numbers, which impacted our retail and catering on-site".

The closure cost York Museums Trust around £400,000 in addition to the £80,0000 paid from its reserves to cover the remedial works. 

“Unfortunately, we have still not been able to reopen the upper half of the female prison because of the need to mitigate remaining RAAC issues," Blacker wrote.

Predicting a drop in visitor numbers from 2023 to 2024, Blacker continued: “We remain loss-making given our reliance on visitor income and trading through our Enterprise subsidiary for 70% our funding."

She said the organisation has £0.8m in its reserves, amounting to less than two months of operating costs.

YMT currently receives an annual grant of £300,000 from City of York Council, which Blacker notes was reduced from £600k in 2015-16 and £1.1m in 2014-15. 

The organisation hopes to secure a £5m grant from Arts Council England's Museum Estate and Development Fund in 2024-25 to help with re-roofing costs and recoup losses.

The British Museum is suing a former curator of Greek and Roman Art, alleging that they stole or damaged more than 2,000, mainly unregistered, artefacts from its collection. 

The museum’s lawyer, Daniel Burgess, said Higgs, who was fired in 2023, “abused his position of trust” and took the items, including ancient gems and gold jewellery, over a 10-year period, according to the Associated Press.

Burgess alleged that Higgs tried to conceal his activities by using fake names and documents, manipulating museum records and undervaluing items when he resold them.

Higgs, who has not yet been charged in a separate ongoing police investigation, denies the allegations. He did not attend a hearing on March 26 because of poor health, but Associated Press reports that he intends to dispute the British Museum’s claim.

The museum has said 351 stolen items have been returned, with 300 further missing items identified.

Orders from High Court judge Heather Williams require Higgs to list or return any items from the museum still in his possession within four weeks and to disclose his records from eBay and PayPal.

The theft of around 1,500 Greek and Roman objects by a British Museum employee between 1993 and 2022 first emerged in August 2023, causing considerable reputational damage to the organisation and resulting in the resignations of Director Hartwig Fischer and Deputy Director Jonathan Williams.

An independent review into thefts has made a series of recommendations to the museum on risk management, auditing, governance and security, as well as introducing a comprehensive register of all eight million items in its collections.

English Heritage is trialling the use of visible body-worn cameras on its staff at four locations in an attempt to discourage antisocial behaviour and crime.

Used at Wrest Park in Bedfordshire, Tilbury Fort in Essex, Kenwood House in north London and Marble Hill in south London, English Heritage says that footage is being recorded "on the basis of our legitimate interest in deterring and detecting crime".

"Experience of these cameras has shown that they are useful at helping defuse confrontational situations and provide a reliable version of events, which can help us to clarify any dispute or serve as evidence in the event it is believed a crime has been committed."

The move follows the recent publication of research commissioned by Historic England and the National Police Chiefs' Council that examined heritage and cultural property crime in England.

The report highlighted problems, including the theft of historic lead and stone, burglaries targeting cultural objects, unlawful metal detecting, and the removal of artefacts from protected wreck sites. It also found issues with antisocial behaviour, including arson, vandalism, and graffiti, recommending a "more effective prevention and active enforcement of heritage crime".