Purbeck Mineral and Mining Museum

No, The Museums are to a large extent self financing. Granted income will have been hit by Covid. The mining museum didn't open at all this year so no donations there. Book stall and Corfe income similarly will have suffered. With the furlough scheme in place costs will probably also have been low.

The paid role of Museums Manager only came into existence a few years ago to help to gain Accreditation. This move is more likely to safeguard the Museums by reducing the cost base. Self sufficiency is one of the 'tests' for gaining Arts Council Accreditation which unlocks all sorts of useful things like inter museum exhibit loans and grants. The Museums have been built up from nothing over a much longer period by volunteer effort alone so will be able to continue without. It may slow the Accreditation process but a lot of the groundwork and accreditation plan was put in place and progress was being made. Hopefully the volunteers can continue to complete the work.

For those a little bit lost please see the sad announcement from Swanage Railway chairman on the Swanage thread regarding staff redundancies.

 

Sad news on the compulsory redundances. Guess this also affects Corfe museum?.
The Mining Museum Facebook pages show some progress with rolling stock maintence and track clearances. It says it is still waiting the result of a grant application to repair the Skew bridge, which could now be delayed without a full time museum manager?

 

Accreditation, can't get much slower!!!Both museum's started accreditation process along with four other Purbeck Museums under the guidance of Dorset County Museum's expert in 2005! The other museums obtained their accreditations within a couple of years and have received grants because of that. There have now been 2 paid Museum Managers for both Swanage Railway museums, with very little effective process.

 

PMMM cannot get accreditation because no lease has been agreed with the local council who own the site. The task of sorting the lease was taken in hand many years ago by one individual who has a reputation for liking to be in charge but not not actually doing anything.

At least one museum has been set up and recieved accreditation in less time, by an ex PMMM volunteer!

Surely Swanage railway would have recieved insurance money for the damage done to Skew Arch bridge? Why do they need to now obtain a grant?
Is the money from insurance payouts not ring fenced (genuine question)?

 

I think you are being a little unfair here or at least don't understand the complexities of the lease. Dorset County Council (DCC) were reluctant to grant a lease on terms that would allow the Museum to qualify for Heritage Lottery and other funding. Funders look for both a long lease and for the lease to be 'assignable' (don't ask me what that means legally). There was also issues around the land being leased not having its own access to a public road instead relying on access being over the carpark which was Purbeck District Council (PDC). As the unification of the local authorities loomed it appeared easier and involved less solicitors fees to wait for DCC and PDC to merge and then negotiate with the new body once all land was under the same management team. The merger took a long time to complete and negotiations restarted as soon as the new Dorset Council were ready. These are now bearing fruit with acceptable wording for the clauses having been recently agreed.

This local authority reorganisation probably set both Furzebrook and the PMMM lease back by about 2 years.

It did, but the bridge was in derelict condition before it was further damaged resulting in the claim. The insurance only covers sufficient work to return the bridge to its previous 'derelict' condition. where as the ambition and grant is to restore the bridge for the narrow gauge and pedestrian use. As restoritan will involve removing the whole bridge its only really viable to tackle the whole thing at once when we have the grant.

 

think you are being a little unfair here or at least don't understand the complexities of the lease. Dorset County Council (DCC) were reluctant to grant a lease on terms that would allow the Museum to qualify for Heritage Lottery and other funding. Funders look for both a long lease and for the lease to be 'assignable' (don't ask me what that means legally). There was also issues around the land being leased not having its own access to a public road instead relying on access being over the carpark which was Purbeck District Council (PDC). As the unification of the local authorities loomed it appeared easier and involved less solicitors fees to wait for DCC and PDC to merge and then negotiate with the new body once all land was under the same management team. The merger took a long time to complete and negotiations restarted as soon as the new Dorset Council were ready. These are now bearing fruit with acceptable wording for the clauses having been recently agreed.

This local authority reorganisation probably set both Furzebrook and the PMMM lease back by about 2 years.

Funny that at a mining museum meeting last November to determine way forward to Accreditation with advice from Museum experts on Accreditation, none of this was mentioned.

 

Perhaps those hosting the meeting didn't want to bore the guest experts with a long ponderous back story with details about pertracted local authority negotiations. By last November this will all have been history so I'm not surprised it didn't come up. The recent lease progress has only really borne fruit over the summer.

You seem to be disgruntled with all things museum related. I can assure you that although things seem to plod along slowly sometimes, plod along they do. Things are often more complex than they appear and whilst you will always be able to find an example of some organization that did XYorZ better or more quickly I don't think that the Swanage Museums are that much worse than other similar volunteer organizations. If you think you can do better have you offered your services?

 

The merger of the councils was announced 2-3 years ago and happened 18 months ago. The lease has been an issue since the museum was first established over 10 years ago. If the issue with the lease is so complex and this was known at the time why was the museum placed on the site it is on?

It is a shame that redundances have been made. The museum manager was a nice chap (if it is he who has gone). I hope he finds new employment swiftly.

I look forward to seeing skew arch back in place next time I am in Dorset.

 

And you think that the old councils carry on as normal right up to the merger and then the new one picks up where they left off the day after? The truth is that other than the day to day stuff that had to carry on there has been a paralisis in what they see as non essential decision making for over two years. Even now post holders are still in 'acting head off ...' roles and the musical chairs takes time to settle down.

Where would you have put it?

 

I think you will find that "Redbarron" knows the truth and that it is one person that has caused the most of the delays over the last 16 years. It is a waste of time anyone offering services whilst that person remains in charge. The building of the museum was a wonderful achievement by a great team who have now gone elsewhere to work under those they respect.
It was considered to leave the Mine building in Situ and create the museum around it including the compressor house. but right or wrong the decision was made to move it to Norden.
The chance of rebuilding Skew Bridge in the short term is hampered by the need to stop all railway movements during the rebuilding. The time needed to reconstruct the bridge across the line could be shortened by constructing it adjacent to the line and lifting onto the buttresses. However there has been talk of alterations to the height of the bridge to allow yet to be determined track alterations to ease the approach of locomotives to Norden Station. I would guess that the bridge will not be completed until plans for a revamped Norden Station have been instigated and funded etc.
When the first lease document given to the museum by the Council was read, it showed that the council had no experience of the conditions of the site etc. as the site was "to be kept weed free" There needed much understanding by both sides in order to have a lease acceptable to all. Having said that it shouldn't have taken in excess of 16 years to reach a satisfactory solution.

 

I have no skin in the game either in Dorset or with the Swanage Railway, but I do have internal experience of a similar merger of councils, having gone through the similar merger in Wiltshire (which happened in 2009). At the time I was working for one of the District Councils absorbed into the new Unitary (essentially the equivalent of working for Purbeck DC and ending up in Dorset Council). I'd estimate that for probably two years before the merger, very little happened at the District that wasn't in support of a legal essential service; and subsequently by time I left Wiltshire Council in late 2011, after two and a half years, was still far from settled down at the new Unitary Authority. That is four years of work to achieve.

In particular at the District level, the merger used a lot of legal resources, and Districts are small organisations so don't have big teams. In the circumstance, I can well imagine there would be very little legal resource available to think through the issues of dealing with a lease of a small tenant.

Tom

 

When I left Purbeck - now well over ten years ago - there was already talk, positioning and time absorbed by the possibility of local authority reorganisation - though the main focus of energy was on what shape any reorganised local authority/ies would be. There was a huge amount of distraction and dissipated energy well in advance of any announcement as people tried to protect positions or place themselves advantageously. (With reference to Jamessquared post, Dorset were looking at reorganisation alongside Wiltshire - they just took a lot longer to get there!)

As to why the museum was placed where it was, I think it was so that it was in a relatively accessible place with the railway as a convenient partner. From a railway perspective it offered an additional attraction at a station that was otherwise only a functional destination.

 

I really do not believe that the entire councils legal department has spent the last ten years organising a merger that may just happen at the expense of doing anything else. And yes I do have first hand experience of the lazyness and buck passing attitude of councils.

The lack of lease has been an issue for over ten years.

I wasn't questioning the location of the museum (it is a good site), just questioning why it was established in the first place if, as implied by mogal, it was known the council were too busy to sort a lease out. It must have been known the implications a lack of lease would have ( I assume that psychic powers are held by some as they knew the merger was going to happen and a lease obtained 12 years in the future, if indeed it does happen) when the museum was put on that site. It is a shame that the museum its self is gradually falling into disrepear as there are so few volunteers have left, many because of the lack of progress as a result of no funding being available due to the lack of a lease. Giving up a day you could be getting on home projects and volunteering when there is nothing to do and not enough people to do anything is a waste of time.

 

It is not funding that was the problem. Volunteers left because of the management.

 

As an ocassional visitor the minimum £1 donation does seem optimistic to support a full time manager who also oversees the Corfe museum. When I was able to visit the Corfe museum this year the expansion with the cinema coach was good, but closed. Also although the Secundus loco was well exhibited, there seemed to be no board showing about the Norden Purbeck mining museum?. From the Purbeck mining museum website it is overseem by a PMMM volunteer management committee, is it one of them who seems to be causing a problem?.
However the PMMM Facebook page is being updated by someone and from it progress looks good.

From Facebook

So the museum is now starting to get grants?. To show the final results in pottery and crafts of the mining and railway operation could be a good thing to help bring in more visitors in 2021 (when lockdown is hopefully over) and raise it's profile (sadly without a paid manager)?
If the grant for the repair of the Skew bridge and running the narrow gauge trains over it, will also help help raise the museums profile, and could lead to funds for a new building to house Secundus onsite?.

 

It is not starting to get grants - it has had several grants before, but grants by themselves do not produce end results. You have the labour available and good management also. It is easy to say but a lot harder to do!

Will the Railway and the Museum have use of the Council Car Park at Norden in 2021? It has been turned into a Covid testing centre and could also become a vaccination centre.

 

https://www.swanageandwarehamvoice....d-19-mobile-unit-will-open-purbeck-next-week/
Think your concerns might be ill-founded.
Apparently only a mobile unit is open there on Tuesday 24th November followed by a regular Thursday session somewhere in Wareham.
If the article is to be believed, it doesn't look likely that Norden car park is to host this mobile unit on a regular basis nor when/if it might re-visit.
We'll just have to wait and see of course.

 

Strangely although the PMMM Facebook page is still being updated (by someone from the Swanage Railway trust? as the manager was made redundant), many posts and photos from the PMMM have been removed?
Looks like 283871 'Snapper' loco having gearbox and painting done?
Good 392117 started and run OK after several months.

 

Looks as if Museum is getting Blue Pool exhibits BUT where will they put them? The only atmosphere controlled building on site is the Engine Shed and that is not accessible to public or clean. Hope there is some maintenance work on the "underground tunnel" scheduled soon otherwise that will probably delay opening.

 

https://www.facebook.com/purbeckmin...185001331477/3564117803671498/?type=3&theater