MUSEUM

The city council has decided to restrict visitors to Pickford House Museum in order to advance bookings. Derby's main museum and art gallery and the Silk Museum, which is the city's industrial museum, will be closed on Sundays and Bank holidays from April 2006. Councillors have said the closure and reduction in opening hours is a necessary cost-saving measure. Councillor Hardyal Dhindsa, council cabinet member for leisure and cultural services, said, "The public are least interested in accessing them on Sundays and Bank Holidays. Pickford's House is not going to close, it is an important cultural heritage destination but we need to co-ordinate and target our resources to make sure that most people get the exposure to it and they get a good experience when they get there."

He added, "What is being done is a restructuring and reorganisation of the way we run our facilities to provide a better, more cost-effective service. It has been very successful with planned group visits, and we are going to try to encourage and enhance that. But it is not cost-effective to have it open for many, many hours when there are small numbers of people coming through the door." Mr Dhindsa said the Silk Mill, off Sowter Road, was reasonably well-attended on Sundays but would now shut on bank holidays, while it was not cost-effective for the Museum and Art Gallery, in the Strand, to open on bank holidays or Sundays. He added, "I would like to keep our facilities open all of the time but we sometimes have to balance best use of taxpayers' money to ensure we can provide better services."

The news about the cuts to the museum service were leaked to the Evening Telegraph by a museum staff member, who said employees had been told the proposed cuts were to fund more management positions and to meet a shortfall in the forthcoming budget. Derby historian Maxwell Craven, who was keeper of antiquities from 1982 to 1998 and is a committee member of the Friends of Derby Museum and Art Gallery, said, "I'm sad and appalled but not in the least surprised." Mr Craven says that closing the museum on Sundays merely repeats a cost-cutting exercise made by a Labour administration in 1974. The decision was turned around in 1988 under the Conservatives. (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph)

A museum for local Georgian, Victorian and historical sporting artefacts could be built in Derby. The proposal forms part of a scaled-down scheme to create a £900,000 mock Viking village at the Racecourse, Chaddesden, next to Derbyshire County Cricket Club's ground. Last December, the plans to create the Derventio Ancient Village - to be devoted to Vikings, Romans and Saxons - were revealed. It was originally proposed that there would be a Viking visitor centre in addition to the mock village. Now the plans have changed to incorporate a new, more general museum. The scheme depends on Derby City Council giving planning permission for the Old Jockey Club building at the ground, off Nottingham Road, to be changed into a museum and cafe.

People behind the project decided to create the museum after discovering that the former jockey club, which is now being used to store lawnmowers, was earmarked for demolition. Dorothy Ireland, of Chaddesden, is one of the group working on the plans for the museum. She said, "This building seems to be the perfect place to put our finds. We would hope to put a range of items on display at the museum. And the building itself is an important part of Derby's history. It's an ideal building and, because we've said we want to use it, we've saved it from being demolished. It's run down at the moment, but we will improve it. It's a museum for local people in their local area. It will tell the story of the area and its history."

The changes to the plans mean the Viking visitor centre will be smaller than originally intended. However, it will still include study areas and offices to provide an educational resource for people. Original estimates for the cost of Derventio Ancient Village were £1.5m. Now project leaders say the cost is more likely to be about £900,000. In May, Derwent Community Team awarded the project £1.2m from its £42m New Deal for Communities regeneration budget. The Government earmarked the cash for improvements to three housing estates in the Derwent area - Roe Farm, Cowsley and St Mark's. This was to cover the building of the village and the running costs for its first year.

The Old Jockey Club is owned by Derwent Delivers, the organisation set up by Derwent Community Team to own and manage assets on its behalf. The project team behind the museum and village is hoping to buy the building with its funds. The museum will exhibit recent artefacts from the Georgian period to the present day. It will also house the items that were found when members of the Derventio Ancient Village committee carried out an archaeological dig in June. Items unearthed at the dig included pottery, musket balls, spent bullets, cap badges and the metal top of an officer's cane.

Ed Buckley, of Chaddesden, has been the driving force behind the idea to create the Derventio Heritage Village at the Racecourse in Chaddesden. He suggested the idea in 2002 ago when residents were consulted by Derwent Community Team on how they would like to spend £42m in Government regeneration money. The idea is now close to reality and Derby City Council is set to hand over more than four acres of public land next to Derbyshire County Cricket Club to Derventio Heritage Limited, of which Mr Buckley is company secretary. The deal will cost the group £40,000 up front to cover the first 10 years of the lease, and the council will retain 15% of any profits made by the museum for the remaining 11 years.

Mr Buckley said, "It's very exciting. The first thing we'll need to do is secure the site with perimeter fencing. While that's going on there will be an archaeological investigation carried out." The heritage village project will recreate different periods from Derby's history, including a copy of a Celtic roundhouse, Viking dwellings, a Saxon street and parts of a Roman village. Another idea is to create an exhibition arena where re-enactment events can take place. The project is expected to cost £1.2m, of which £900,000 has been donated by Derwent Community Team from the Government's New Deal for Communities fund. Derventio Heritage Limited has raised the remainder of the money.

Mr Buckley said people should be able to visit the site "virtually immediately" after the lease was signed. Steps are being taken to create a 1960s "Cold War" military camp on part of the site within the first few weeks, helping to bring more recent history to life. Visitors are expected to be invited to make donations rather than pay a full admission fee until the site is properly up and running later in 2005. Residents of the Derwent area will receive "vast discounts" on admission, according to Mr Buckley, although entrance fees have not yet been agreed. (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph)

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