LOTTO EXTRA!
Successful Heritage Lottery Fund bid will provide New Display Hall
It is many years since we have been able to announce an expansion to our undercover accommodation, something vitally needed. So it is with special delight that we can announce not only a new hall but, thanks to generous outside funding, also advise that its contents will bring new standards of presentation to Wythall. By next year the Museum should look very different, thanks to a major investment by the Heritage Lottery Fund, which is contributing £911,920 (over 88%) to a total project costing over a million pounds.
The cost had risen considerably in recent months, partly due to the frightening increase in steel prices but also quality issues raised by the HLF in terms of presentation and bigger toilets. At the heart of the project is an additional display hall to showcase why the bus manufacturing and operating industries evolved in the way they have, including the outside pressures on them. The HLF was concerned that the displays should be imaginative so a designer will be employed and will work with us to produce colourful and enjoyable displays that will link the buses and artefacts on show, yet ensure that the exhibits can be exchanged from time to time. We are particularly anxious that the buses will not look 'stuffed and mounted', a description frequently levelled at museums. Audio-visual facilities will add life and there will be assembly areas for groups and school parties.
This is a wonderful reward for you, our supporters, who are at the core of our success and have worked tremendously hard restoring the buses and battery-electric vehicles, which the HLF has recognised deserve better display. We hope that visitors will continue to enjoy our collections but will also retain the good feeling that it is enthusiasts with a real love of the vehicles that continues to drive Wythall.
HLF Regional Manager Anne Jenkins said, "People love historic vehicles and it's important that we preserve as many of them as possible for people to enjoy and learn about. The new display hall will have a significant impact on the local community by attracting visitors and acting as a catalyst for further regeneration".
In addition to the display hall, the total works include new toilet facilities, the stores building already constructed and revised access roads within the site, improving access for wheelchair users and parents with children in pushchairs. As you already know, we have purchased the freehold of the site to ensure our long-term future.
As far as the public is concerned, the Museum will go into hibernation as usual at the end of October and the builders will move in next year, the intervening time being spent drawing up detailed plans and appointing contractors. At the moment we are unsure as to the amount of access possible at the beginning of next season (we usually re-open at Easter) so we will have to ensure our regular visitors are kept advised through the enthusiast magazines.
SO WHAT'S THE CATCH?
In our submission we gave predictions of growth in visitor numbers and, to aid this, we undertook to open 100 days a year. We already open on Saturdays, Sundays and Bank Holiday Mondays for much of the year. Extending our season slightly gets us closer to the 100 days. The remainder would be achieved by limited weekday opening. The HLF also works to instructions and they are clearly under pressure to secure educational benefits. Our grant includes only one special condition which is:- "Provision of a revised education strategy within six months of the date of the award with confirmation of appropriate professional input in the form of support from professional museums staff and educationalists."
A TIME OF GREAT PATIENCE
The project has already started with the Blueline stores building and the construction of a mezzanine floor in the engineering area, which is the key to disposing of the dilapidated railway carriages. Anybody who has had the builders in will realise that even the smallest project can throw up unexpected problems. We would be foolish to think that a million pound project will not generate inconveniences, problems and even blunders! The next year will therefore require us to develop a generosity of patience even greater than normal. Good humour will help us get through a trying but exciting period.
SPACE - THE FINAL FRONTIER
One source of thankfully good-natured debate in our negotiations was a desire by the HLF to reduce the number of buses in favour of more support displays. We argued as robustly as possible against this, citing the disaster of Transperience, Bradford, and pointing out that the display hall had to meet our accommodation problems or it wasn't worth doing.
The result is the initial display in the new hall should include eighteen buses and two battery-electrics. Hopefully this will allow us to get all BaMMOT buses under cover and still reduce the overcrowding in the Scania Hall where bus numbers will reduce by three, allowing aisles to be widened as required by the Disability Discrimination Act and give a better view of the exhibits. It is also proposed to reduce the number of buses in the engineering area by two to give much needed space there. The proposal for the Shire Hall is only to open it to visitors on event days. This is perhaps a shame because visitors find the restoration area most interesting but, with the increasing compensation culture, it threatens to become an insurance nightmare. Aisles will thus not need widening throughout and members will be able to work on, only having to ensure their oaths are not audible beyond the confines of the building!
It is nice to get a big grant but one twitches when a fellow museum puts up for sale 32 vehicles to meet the funders' requirements for support displays and more circulating space. The hit list includes lots of half cabs, including three Leyland TD1s, a TD2 and a TD7, and a Daimler CWA6; one assumes all are rough.
SO WHICH BUSES BENEFIT?
Firstly, it is important to understand that the HLF award does not include any vehicle restoration costs. As regards which vehicles are going into the new display, the selection is largely finalised but the detail of how they are to be displayed is being kept under wraps. Certain things are logical from a catastrophe reduction point of view. With three halls and three D9s and S23s in various forms, it makes sense to try to keep a D9 and a S23 in each of the three halls; WMPTE Fleetlines similarly. The vehicles in the hall will not need to appear as if they have never been used but, apart from the seriously old, they should look from outside as if they are capable of stepping back into service. Volunteer effort will be required towards improving the following:-
SOS Queen - Sufficiently complete to be centrepiece of display;
Tilling-Stevens - Glazing and outside staircase would be good;
Bedford SB coach - Remove dent in front and prepare for repaint;
Douglas Guy - Sort out radiator grille and prepare for repaint;
Wolverhampton trolleybus - Prepare for repaint (although at this stage we might not do the offside due to its condition);
Wolverhampton Guy - Sort out glazing rubber and reinstate missing glass;
Post Office pedestrian van - Re-panel and prepare for repaint.
Certain supporting items will at last find a good home in the new hall, for example the drop centre rear axle on a stand, presently outside and needing titivating and repainting.
NEW VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES
We are sure there are lots of enthusiasts out there who think Wythall only needs people who can carry out full body, chassis and engine overhauls. Well, we could do with more possessing those abilities but the Heritage Lottery Fund investment gives us the opportunity to press home that we also need interested people who may not be mechanically inclined. We will be expanding our support facilities, for example we will be looking for people with the right social skills to give guided tours, conduct our classic buses, get involved in catering or retailing, or staff the car park.
With the special condition attached to our grant, a very important new area will be creating an education programme and we would be especially pleased to hear from teachers and potential guides interested in developing the programme.
If you have been a non-active member and now realise that you can help us or you know any suitable potential staff, please advise us of areas of interest, either by writing to us or by e-mailing enquiries@wythall.org.uk and typing 'Volunteer' in the subject box. To give potential new recruits the best introduction to Wythall, we intend to have a New Volunteer Day when they will be shown around everything and their abilities established.
Don't forget the Museum has three more main open days this year - 28 August, 29 August and 9 October - before the builders move in.
Malcolm Keeley
Chapel Lane, Wythall, Worcs B47 6JX
Tel : 01564 826471 e-mail us
A registered educational charity no 507191
