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Natural History services), the two museums were both described as unfit for purpose and the Burymead Resource Centre as outdated and inefficient.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.
These pages include the core documents relating to the Strategy and to the Feasibility Study commissioned to investigate the possibility of converting Hitchin Town Hall to museum use, Forum newsletters and presentations made to the Forum and Working Groups. A decision will be made by full Council on 3 December 2009.
Feasibility Study
[5.96 MB] Feasibility Study, October 2009 (link opens in new window)
Other documents
Please follow the link in the sidebar for other core documents.
