Agenda item
To receive comments, questions or petitions from members of the public
A period of up to 15 minutes is allowed for members of the public to make a comment, ask questions or present petitions. Each member of the public has up to 3 minutes to do this. A councillor may also present a petition on behalf of a member of the public.
Minutes:
The Chairman invited Mr D. Norton, from the Bromsgrove Museum Trust, to present his question:
Before presenting his question Mr. Norton thanked Council for allowing him to speak and took the opportunity to provide Members with background information to the matter and why he believed it was unreasonable for the Council to request a commercial rate for the storage facility. He also questioned the reason he had been given by the Leader when requesting that the room where the artefacts were being stored, be vacated.
“Having given the Norton Collection to the people of Bromsgrove for their benefit and education, my question is, why should the Norton Collection Museum pay for the storage at the Bromsgrove Council Depot? As we are a Charitable Trust it would be much fairer to give us a peppercorn rent.”
The Leader responded that when the Norton Trust transferred to the Norton Museum the Council entered into a licence arrangement with the Museum that gave them storage facilities for a period of three years at a nominal rent. This was a short term arrangement agreed as part of the transfer to enable the Museum to have time to organise alternative accommodation arrangements.
The terms of the licence were agreed by both parties and were very straightforward and they gave the Museum Trust three years, a time period which the Leader did not think Members would consider unreasonable, to find alternative space to accommodate their artefacts. In line with this agreement, the Council was now asking the Museum to vacate the space that it occupied at the depot as the space was required for use by this Council.
It was further explained that the Deport space was very limited and it was there to provide the District with Environmental Services. It was not a storage facility and the Council had a need for the space for the effective delivery of its services to its residents. There were many charitable organisations in the district that would like to benefit from what has essentially been a free storage facility, but the Council was not, and neither would it be appropriate, for it to be in a position to provide this kind of service.
The Leader concluded that it was for that reason that the licence was time limited and it was for that reason that the museum needed to look to the other options that it has for the storage of its items and the Council was prepared to assist with the relocation of these items to a site at the request of the holding trust.
A number of points of clarification were raised by Members:
· Whether the Council would continue to work with the Trustees to resolve the issues raised. The Leader confirmed that she had looked at various alternatives and put forward suggestions to Mr. Norton, unfortunately they had not appeared to be suitable. But she would continue to try and resolve the matter.
· The size of the potential storage space required. The Leader advised that when she had contacted a storage company it was suggested that ten 40 foot container units would be needed to accommodate the artefacts.
· Councillor S. Baxter thanked Mr. Norton for the invitation to visit the Museum.
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Supporting documents:
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