Post museum plan is stamped out...

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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PLANS for a £19m postal museum have been stamped out due to a lack of funding.

After undertaking extensive feasibility work, the trustees of The British Postal Museum and Archive (BPMA) have decided not to continue with plans to develop a new base in Swindon.

The decision comes despite the BPMA receiving a first-round pass for a grant of £2.5m from the Heritage Lottery Fund and is in response to significant changes to funding expectations, particularly from corporate supporters, during the past six months.

The Postal Museum and Archive, the store and archive of the Royal Mail, was hoped to develop one of the remaining parts of Swindon’s Railway Works Conservation Area – the Grade II listed Chain Test House, in Western Churchward Village.

One of the main factors in the BPMA’s original decision to base the museum at the historic Churchward Village was because it would join prominent cultural organisations already based there including English Heritage, the National Trust and Steam, as well as the close proximity to London.

Like other cultural organisations, the BPMA attributes difficulties in meeting fundraising targets to the current challenging economic climate.

The Swindon site though appears to be off the table as the BPMA look for a new site to base their museum.

Project manager, Tim Ellison, said: “Hand on heart I am sorry to say the funding gap is very significant and it is difficult to overcome that.

“For the site in Swindon it was the Chain Test House or nothing and with the lack of funding we really are struggling to make that happen.

“We now have to go back to drawing up a list of other possibilities now. The Swindon site was chosen in 2008 after an extensive period of site searching and the building represented a great choice for us.”

The museum’s collection, which includes more than 200 letter boxes, postal vehicles and every British stamp issued since the Penny Black, has been in storage since 1998 after the closure of the National Postal Museum, near St Paul's Cathedral, in London.

Since then, split between the Mount Pleasant Mail Centre, in London, and a museum store in Debden, Essex, the four centuries of postal history has not been comprehensively accessible to the public.

The BPMA will continue to work with communities in Swindon, where it will be staging an exhibition of iconic post office photographs in the autumn.

The BPMA says it retains its commitment to securing an accessible future home, and its staff will continue working to achieve the best possible outcome for the organisation and its collections.

[subbie]

Shame, I was looking forward to seeing all the different types of Post Offices displayed in this museum, that successive Gov's have shut down.

Apparently there is more to come, so we could have a Crown and Sub section

2018 "Ooo look children this where people used to communicate with each other and maintain a sense of community"

Subbie