- INTRODUCTION
In
October 2001 The Oxfordshire Museum completed a £2.4m project to refurbish
the displays and provide new visitor services with grant aid of £1.8m
from the Heritage Lottery Fund. An Education Room was to be installed
in Fletcher’s House, but the decision was taken, with Heritage Lottery
Fund approval, to convert all of the rooms to public display areas instead.
This project seeks to install a high quality 80-seat education facility
in the Coach House at the rear of the Fletcher’s House site and remove
the existing museum workshop to Oxfordshire Museum Store at Standlake,
to join the conservation workshop.
- DESCRIPTION
OF THE PROPOSAL
The
project is to remove the museum workshop to Oxfordshire Museum Store
at Standlake and to update its equipment. This will allow the former
Coach House, in the curtilage of the Listed Building of Fletcher’s House,
to be restored and brought in to public use as an Education Room for
both schools and adult learners. The Education Room is currently housed
in the Pratten Building, a temporary building formerly used for storage
of the schools loan service. The Friends of the Museum, finding this
accommodation uncomfortable for group meetings and events, have offered
to fund the project to provide a new facility, and one Friend in particular,
now deceased, has left a substantial donation for this purpose. Further
funding (72% of the cost) is being sought from the Heritage Lottery
Fund, to complete the initial objectives of the Heritage Lottery Fund
capital project, and from Oxfordshire County Council’s Minor Works.
- NEED FOR
THE PROJECT
The
current education facility in the Pratten building is environmentally
uncomfortable, inadequate in size and inefficient to run and maintain.
Now that the Heritage Lottery Fund project in The Oxfordshire Museum
is completed, there is no need for an on-site workshop while most staff
are located at Oxfordshire Museum Store at Standlake. Moving the workshop
will increase staff working efficiency and allow better use of the Coach
House.
- CONSISTENCY
WITH SERVICE STRATEGY
The
project fulfills service strategies in increasing efficiency of conservation
and workshop time and reducing travelling expenses; enabling education
provision for schools, children’s events, lifelong learning classes,
group meetings and lectures after museum opening hours, providing facilities
for outreach activities and building new audiences, developing strategies
for social inclusion, and generating income.
- OTHER OPTIONS
No
change: The Pratten building has little insulation, is not energy-efficient,
is difficult and expensive to keep warm in the winter and uncomfortably
stuffy the rest of the time. Education use is shared with some office
and storage space for other members of staff and it is not a convenient
arrangement. The workshop could remain in the Coach House, but the building
would remain un-restored, and in fact, under-used. The Coach House,
a solid stone building in the curtilage of the Listed Building of Fletcher’s
House, has potential for better, public use than the occasional construction
work.
The
original Fletcher’s House project: It was decided, with Heritage
Lottery Fund agreement, to restore all the rooms to public and display
uses so that the House could be fully accessible. The temporary education
space was made available in the former Loans Service building to compensate
for loss of such space in Fletcher’s House. This decision appears to
have been justified by the response to the new displays in Fletcher’s
House, which have been well received. Only the Education Room gets complaints.
Improve
the insulation of the Pratten building: We have considered this,
and taken informal advice from WS Atkins, but it is not really feasible.
The floors, walls, and roof would require insulation, virtually a rebuild
of a temporary building, and not cost effective, or productive of a
viable result.
A
new building on the site of the Pratten building: We seriously
investigated this, to re-develop the site with a purpose built education
and environmental centre on the footprint of the existing building.
Costs from WS Atkins were around £1.5m to provide the same space, bearing
in mind that a new building within the curtilage of a Listed Building
would need to be of high specification both in materials and design.
Investigation of possible funding for this project demonstrated that
it would be difficult to raise the amount of capital in grant or match
funding to achieve the aims of the project.
- JUSTIFICATION
FOR THE PREFERRED OPTION
This
option gives maximum value for money and makes optimum use of the partnership
funding offered by a Friend of the Museum for educational purposes within
a reasonable
period
of time. This project:
- restores the
Coach House to an attractive asset on the Listed Building site;
- makes full use
of its space and location;
- the improvements
can be made with minimum interference with the original structure,
and will improve its appearance;
- creates a much
needed education centre to complement the museum displays
- completes the
museum Heritage Lottery Fund refurbishment project; enables the workshop
and conservation services to be reunited on one site at Standlake
for more efficient operation;
- reduces the
use of the Pratten building for its eventual (and desirable) demolition.
- is achievable
with the partnership funding from the Friends, Oxfordshire County
Council budgets already secured, and a modest Heritage Lottery Fund
grant, within a year.
- IDENTIFICATION
OF FUNDING
The
project cost is £324,341.
The
Friends of The Oxfordshire Museum have made a secure offer of £50,000
towards a new education facility. The Heritage Lottery Fund have been
approached for 72% of the cost, £234,341. The Oxfordshire Museum has
secured £5,000 in miscellaneous grants. Oxfordshire County Council Cultural
Services have allocated £35,000 from minor works towards the project,
which was initially agreed in December 2000, subsequently endorsed by
the Executive in their 2002/03 Capital Programme allocation.
A
Resource Appraisal is appended (download
as .rtf file).
- STAFF IMPLICATIONS
There
are no staffing implications, as the new facility will be managed within
existing resources.
- ENVIRONMENTAL
IMPLICATIONS