Museum board asks for development team
Invercargill City Council is set to take over governance duties of the Southland Museum at a time when major decisions loom over its future.
At a council meeting yesterday, councillors voted to include a proposal to transfer governance of the museum from the museum trust board to the council in its Annual Plan as the preferred option.
The vote comes after it was revealed that a report commissioned by the Southland Museum Trust board recommended the now-closed Southland Museum adjacent to Queens Park be retained and developed at a cost of $66 million.
The Tim Walker report, leaked to Stuff, has yet to be discussed by Southland’s councils so any decisions on whether its contents are pursued or discarded appear some way off.
Walker suggests $22m of the $66m in funding for his recommended museum should come from Southland’s councils.
However, yesterday Gore District Mayor Tracy Hicks virtually ruled out his council contributing and suggested Invercargill needed a museum telling its story, not Southland’s story.
There was a perception the Southland Museum tried to be ‘‘all things to all people’’ and he believed Invercargill’s story had been lost.
Hicks said the province should be working towards a ‘‘museums of Southland concept’’, where the stories of each place were told in that place, but with collaboration across the province.
Southland District Mayor Gary Tong said the $66m recommendation in the Southland Museum report was a ‘‘lot of money’’. His council would discuss the issue ‘‘very soon’’ and there would need to be community consultation.
Toni Biddle, Invercargill’s deputy mayor and chairwoman of the Southland Museum board, said the board believed the community deserved $22m spent by the councils on Southland’s heritage and culture.
There had been a lot of positive feedback about the redevelopment concepts since the report was leaked, she said. ‘‘As a community, we need to decide how much we want this to happen and how much we want it to happen.’’
The museum board felt a specific project team was needed to drive the museum redevelopment project, including fundraising. ‘‘The board has asked [the city council] to consider this.’’
Invercargill City councillor Nobby Clark said he supported the museum building being strengthened to legal requirements and reopened. This could be done much cheaper and much faster than getting the $66m option over the line, he said.
But Biddle said the board believed the Southland community deserved better than a ‘‘band-aid status quo’’ museum and art gallery.
She pointed to Walker’s comment in the report saying a strategic approach to investment in the museum would deliver multiple advantages to community identity, pride, economy and liveability.