Our museum must not be left to rot

IN A city where glass and concrete make up the majority of Cardiff’s ever-changing skyline, the white Portland stone of City Hall and the National Museum in a protected conservation area is a welcome nod back to years gone by.

They are historic, iconic buildings telling stories of past wealth and glory. A walk through the spring blossom of Alexandra Gardens is a beautiful thing, the skyline of these two buildings peeping just over the pink flowers. The march to Greenham Common started in their shadow, the victory parade following Cardiff’s historic win against Arsenal in the FA Cup saw every inch of ground swamped by fans. If you went to Cardiff’s Big Weekend or Pride Cymru, you’ve pictures in front of them, countless graduates have posed outside them for a picture, mortarboard mid-air. Summer days passed with picnics in front of these two buildings, for half marathon finishers, they are a welcome sight. Royalty has been there, people have married inside the walls.

But we are facing the very real possibility these two historic buildings will be hollow, empty shells.

Amgueddfa Cymru’s boss has warned the National Museum may have to close because they can’t afford the repairs to the building.

The museum, founded in 1905, houses Wales’ national art and natural history collections as well as major touring and temporary exhibitions. The whole of the first floor is dedicated to Wales’ national art collections and features one of the best collections of Impressionist paintings in Britain and leading international artists of today.

The Grade-I listed City Hall, is currently closed for repair works and won’t fully re-open until 2026.

Cardiff has seen what happens if its history is not conserved and protected. The Coal Exchange is one of the saddest tales the capital can tell. One of the few historic buildings that links the old Tiger Bay to the modern Cardiff Bay, its mishandling has seen the building literally left to rot.

The same cannot happen here, and yet Wales’ First Minister said that his government does not plan to intervene. Vaughan Gething said his government has chosen, with its limited budget, to prioritse the NHS and local government. He said he cannot tell people he is doing that if he agrees to give money to other causes.

The two things are not comparable. It is not a vanity project or a speculative spend. It is a one-off lump sum, no doubt of millions of pounds but that sum will protect this asset for generations to come. It is not just the stone that needs protecting, but what is inside it, what it says about Wales as a country, a tourist attraction, a country serious about its past and its future.

Labour as a party has committed to make the arts more accessible, that cannot happen if there is no asset in the nation’s capital for art.