Visiting Len Lye? Bring ID with you
From today, if you’re a New Plymouth resident and you want to visit the city’s premier art gallery, you’d better make sure you have your driver’s licence and a letter from your bank.
Entry charges for Govett-Brewster Art Gallery/Len Lye Centre are coming into force, with a $15 fee for non-locals.
The move has been brought about to offset the amount of taxpayers’ money being pumped into the centre.
It received $4.5m in council funding in 2016/17.
Those who are resident in the New Plymouth District – from Tongaporutu in the north to just south of Okato and Inglewood – will still have free entry, but must provide ID and proof of address.
‘‘Directly or indirectly they fund the Len Lye Centre,’’ said New Plymouth mayor Neil Holdom, who used his casting vote to bring in the fees last November.
New Plymouth residents can use their library cards as proof of address, and those who have made major funding contributions will also be allowed free entry, he said.
‘‘I don’t think it’s unfair to ask visitors to the district to contribute what is essentially the price of a movie ticket,’’ Holdom added.
‘‘It’s not a difficult or onerous change.’’
The Len Lye Foundation, which is responsibly for the late artist’s legacy, is due to receive $5 from each entry fee, but has said it will not accept the money.
But Holdom said: ‘‘We’ll be writing a cheque to the Len Lye Foundation at the end of the financial year and what they decide to do with it is up to them.’’
He said the fee would increase pressure to make sure the venue offered value for money.
‘‘We need the internal experience to match the external facade, and at the moment we need to work on it.’’
However, Len Lye Foundation chair Susan Hughes warned the council may have to reconsider its stance. ‘‘I guess time will tell. My expectation is that numbers will drop off.’’
And Terry Parkes, a longtime fundraiser for the centre and chair of the Art in Public Places Trust, said it had not been properly thought out.
‘‘Someone coming from Stratford would have to pay $15,’’ he said.
‘‘There’s so many combinations of it not working that it will blow itself to bits.
‘‘There’ll be arguments at the reception all the time.’’
He said he was not against a charge for free independent travellers but ‘‘not enough thought’s gone into it’’.
‘‘It’s already hard enough to get people to go there as it is.’’