Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
SINKING FEELING AS HMS CAROLINE SHUTS
Concern over future of ship as attraction for tourists
A ROW has broken out after it emerged HMS Caroline will not reopen to the public this year due to a funding shortfall from the Department for the Economy.
The National Museum of the Royal Navy will reopen sites across the UK thanks to emergency support from the Treasury.
But an agreement has not been reached with the Northern Ireland Executive which is responsible for HMS Caroline which is moored in Belfast.
UUP leader Steve Aiken said: “Today’s announcement the future status of HMS Caroline is uncertain is a debacle the Minister of the Economy [Diane Dodds] needs to address urgently.
“When we became aware of the circumstances of the shutting of this historic ship – which saw service in WW1 – as a visitor attraction, just at the same time the rest of the National Museum of the Royal Navy’s is planning to reopen, we wrote to the minister and also raised the issue in the Assembly. Serious questions are raised by the fact this crisis has apparently been created by the failure of the department to make payments due to the NMRN and an operating agreement on how the ship is managed being allowed to run out, again by the minister’s department.
“That the minister is even considering shutting the ship down for six months, with the paying off of staff, at the same time as her own department attempts to maintain and bolster our tourism and visitor attractions simply beggars belief.”
HMS Caroline is owned by NMRN and opened to the public through an operator agreement made with the Department for the Economy.
NMRN director general Dominic Tweddle said: “We have liaised exhaustively with
Dofe and continue to do so in the hope we could still reopen HMS Caroline alongside our sites across the UK.” A Department for the Economy spokesperson said visitor numbers have been disappointing and resulted in operational deficits.
They added: “The department agreed with NMRN to extend the current period of closure of the attraction until December 31, 2020.
“The department will utilise this to fully and thoroughly examine in detail all options and costs for the future of the attraction, taking into account how the tourism sector in Northern Ireland is likely to recover in the short, medium and long term.
“The department has also advised NMRN it will meet agreed costs associated with this period of temporary closure, which include salary costs of two members of staff. The remainder of the HMSC staff are currently on furlough through
the job retention scheme.”
AN unmanned mission to Mars was successfully launched from China yesterday.
The country’s largest carrier rocket blasted off with the probe at 12.41pm from a space centre in Hainan.
This is China’s first independent mission to another planet and shows its ambition to join an elite club of space-faring nations.
In 2020, Mars is at its closest to Earth, at a distance of around 55,000,000km.
The probe is expected to land in February at Utopia Planitia – a vast plain in the northern hemisphere – and deploy a rover to explore the planet for 90 days.