Sunday 24 July 2011

Church Famhouse Museum up for Sale

With indecent haste Barnet Council are seeking approval to flog off the Church Farmhouse Museum. In the papers for Thursday's Cabinet Resources Commitee the members are being asked to declare the Museum surplus to requirements and:

"That the disposal of the freehold interest be advertised on the open market to seek details of proposed schemes and initial bids."

How utterly tragic that this Grade II listed building with parts that date back to the 17th century should just be flogged off like a secondhand car. To add insult to injury the council has chosen probably one of the worst times in the economic cycle to realise the maximum value from this site. This looks like a desperately shortsighted strategy to raise a bit of cash.

5 comments:

  1. Appalling: this Tory administration values everything as a commodity and understands neither culture nor history. What a bunch of grasping phililstines they are. It is clear now that they never had the slightest intention to honour their Big Society twaddle about enabling local groups to take over once they pulled the plug on funding.

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  2. Expect we will read all about it in Private Eye next. More bad publciity for Barnet Council

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  3. What strikes me is the formulaic and mechanistic way that the case has been presented in the report. There is no account taken of the passion, cultural value, aspirational quality, aesthetics, humanity and "greater good" that Museums provide. These are the things that improve residents' lives and the reputation of their borough. We can afford to miss out on the occasional "capital receipt" (after all we missed out on £millions in Iceland and Aerodrome Road etc) but we cannot afford to lose our heritage. We are living more and more in an "Accountocracy" - rule by the accountant, but we should remember the words of the sign hanging on Einstein's office wall: "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.

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  4. Also, may I ask how the Cabinet Paper's statement (para 9.13): "Any new development should demonstrate compliance with Unitary Development Plan policies" reconciles with the Policy L1 of the UDP (as found on LBB's website) which states: "The council will refuse development proposals resulting in the loss of arts, culture and entertainment facilities to other uses" (earlier it defines museums as arts culture and entertainment facilities)??

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  5. MickeyN, they seem to make it up as they go along. As for 'accountocracy', following that through to its logical solution would mean a cut in the number of councillors per ward from three to one. That would free up around £600k per annum in allowances, more than enought to keep both museums and the Artsdepot going

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