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Art, Museums and Heritage Forum

In 2004-5, North Hertfordshire District Council undertook a Fundamental Service Review (also known as a Best Value Review) of its Museum Service. Although the Review found that visitors greatly valued all aspects of the service (Hitchin Museum & Art Gallery, Letchworth Museum & Art Gallery, the Education Service with its School Loans scheme, the Archaeology and the Natural History services), the two museums were both described as unfit for purpose and the Burymead Resource Centre as outdated and inefficient.

The Review had five main recommendations towards providing a better service for the whole district, which were as follows:-

To develop a Museum/Cultural Strategy
To develop a new museum store/Resource Centre, possibly in partnership with other local museums
To improve the School Loans scheme with partnership working
To use IT to digitise the museum collections
To close the two existing Council-run museums and instead run a museum and gallery on a single town-centre site, with a saving of £125,000