Memorandum submitted by the Museums, Libraries and
Archives Council (NE2-12)

 

 

Executive summary

 

1 Cultural heritage (including Museums libraries and archives) is recognised as an important contributor to the region's tourism offer.[1] It both stimulates business growth and promotes a positive image for the region, contributing to quality of life and attracting inward investment. As well as providing an important component of the region's visitor offer, the sector offers opportunities to raise aspirations and skills, tackling economic exclusion.

 

2 The region has diverse and rich cultural heritage assets, including museums, libraries and archives of international and national as well as regional significance. Recent investment by a range of funders in capital infrastructure, skills and service development has demonstrated the potential of a quality product.

 

3 The new Tourism strategy and Integrated Regional Strategy currently in preparation need to ensure the North East builds on the investment to date to maximise the contribution of the museum, library and archives sector to the regions prosperity and give strategic coherence to the offer.

 

4 Future investment should focus on developing and renewing existing cultural facilities and services and further raising the profile of the region and increasing perception of the North East as a place to live and work.

 

MLA

 

5 The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) is a Non-Departmental Body sponsored by the Department for Culture Media and Sport and is the lead strategic agency for museums, libraries and archives. We work to improve people's lives by building knowledge, supporting learning, inspiring creativity and celebrating identity.

 

6 Museums, libraries and archives have a key role to play in supporting and promoting tourism. They act as spaces of discovery and inspiration, as magnets to visitors, and libraries perform the key role of information hubs, helping people to find out about the local area and forthcoming events.

 

7 MLA undertakes work on the sustainable communities and place-shaping agendas at a national and regional level. This includes work under the Living Places and Sea Change programmes as well as policy development work which is ongoing around sustainability. MLA works at a regional level to ensure success under these priority areas and part of this role involves liaison with the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs), ensuring that culture is reflected in regional strategies and plans, including tourism and visitor economy strategies. Some of this work at both regional and national level is planned and delivered in partnership with Arts Council, English Heritage and Sport England.

 

North East England

 

8 There are currently 67 museums in North East England (accredited under MLA's national standards scheme for museums)[2]. 30 are operated by local authorities, 11 are volunteer-run and a further 10 are independent trusts. 8 are managed by the National Trust, 4 by English Heritage and 3 by universities. One National museum-Locomotion-the National Railway Museum at Shildon operates in the Region.[3]

 

9 In 2006 the 67 Accredited museums in North East England received 3,866,103 visits. Over 60% of these visits were to local authority-run museums.[4] In 2008 the top twelve visitor attractions in the North East included six museums.[5] The importance of enhancing and conserving these assets was identified as one of the ten objectives for measuring progress of the Regional Tourism Strategy.[6]

 

10 Designated collections of national and international significance are held by the Bowes Museum, Beamish, Durham University and Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums. The world heritage sites of Durham and Hadrian's Wall have world class collections associated with them.

 

11 The diverse and rich heritage, including museums, libraries and archives, brings a wide range of positive economic, social and cultural impacts, which are inter-linked and mutually re-enforcing to the benefit of the region. The most significant of these economic impacts are in relation to the region's tourism industry and wider visitor offer. Heritage assets attract over 6 million visitors annually, contributing over £180 million wider visitor spending, and creating over 5,400 jobs within the tourism industry.[7] The Regional Economic Strategy also highlighted the more intangible role played by the sector in developing a positive image for the region, contributing to quality of life and attracting inward investment.

 

12 A recent study, as part of the work carried out for the development of the Great North Museum project, has demonstrated the potential economic impact of museums. For example the development of the Great North Museum will create a total of 162 new jobs as a consequence of incremental visitor expenditure and for an investment of £25.75m provide net present value of £74.9m.[8]

 

 

 

 

 

Strategies

 

13 The current North East Regional Economic Strategy recognises the contribution that heritage (and other cultural assets) make in stimulating business growth and employment.

 

14 The North East England Regional Tourism Strategy 2005-2010 recognises the value of the region's heritage in the visitor economy. The Regional Image Strategy and the region's Tourism Marketing Strategy identify 'History and Heritage' as a key theme. The Passionate People campaign has been widely taken up and supported by the region's museums.

 

15 A 2008 report into the role played by heritage in growing the visitor economy emphasised that the region has an already well developed heritage resource. It identified thematic and cross-cutting approaches that could provide a framework for the development and promotion of the sector in a tourism context.[9]

 

16 In 2008 a regional museum strategy was developed with the sector, identifying priorities for museums over the coming period. It identified the aim of a clear regional offer and a strategy for museums to engage with and increase participation rates in four key audiences, including tourists.

 

17 The new Tourism strategy and Integrated Regional Strategy currently in preparation need to ensure the North East builds on the investment to date to maximise the contribution of the museum, library and archives sector to the regions prosperity.

 

Programmes and investment

 

18 Between 2002 and 2009 the North East will have received over £20m from MLA's Renaissance in the Regions Programme to transform museums for the benefit of museum users. The main aim of Renaissance is to transform England's regional museums; to raise their standards and deliver real results in education, learning, community development and economic regeneration-making museums great centres of life and learning, which people want to visit.[10] Its contribution to economic regeneration in the regions was recognized in its recent review.[11] The review also noted the North West hub has attracted £3m of investment from Northwest Regional Development Agency which it matched with Renaissance funding, which, '... will be used to accelerate the development of up to six key regional museums and galleries, and enable them to play a more active role in the region's tourist economy. The RDA funds ... would enable the North West to demonstrate regional strategic investment in its cultural heritage while also supporting the development of collections displays and major temporary exhibitions, which would aim to attract visitors from across the region and beyond'.

 

19 The investment through the Renaissance in the Regions programme has led to an increase of 350,000 in annual visits to North East Hub museum venues and 2 million visits are now made to our Hub museums annually. Hub museums attract significant numbers of tourists to the region, for example c.60% of Beamish visitors are tourists from outside the north east region.

 

20 Renaissance has also invested in skills development and customer care expertise to improve services to all visitors to all museums across the region thus providing a wide ranging and diverse tourist offer. A training and awareness programme run jointly with One North East supported museums develop their visitor offer and increase to 60% those that now meet the Visitor Attraction Quality Assurance Scheme.[12]

 

21 The additional capacity created through the Renaissance investment has enabled museums to play a strong role in regional marketing, events and promotional activity. For example: SeaBritain North East 2005 initiative, which supported the Tall Ships event; the North Face exhibition, showing the National Portrait Gallery's collections across the region; and the popular Late Shows, which last year attracted 11,000 visits into the night for a 'culture crawl' around 26 museums and galleries across NewcastleGateshead.

 

22 This big thinking, partnership working and ambition is reflected in planned and potential projects such as the Tall Ships stop at Hartlepool in 2012, regional and local plans underway for the Cultural Olympiad and County Durham's bid for the city of culture in 2013

 

23 The Regional Museum Strategy also recognised that Heritage Lottery funding has led to extensive renewal of the visitor offer over the past ten years. The flagship museum and archive at Woodhorn receiving the largest single grant of £10.2m. The Renaissance programme has also increased capacity which has allowed the Hub museums to develop projects and work with external partners to an extent that would not have been possible before. It has levered over £55 million investment into the Hub partners alone in 2002-06. Much of this investment has been brought in from outside the region, and has improved cultural infrastructure in the North East, its quality as a destination and its attractiveness as a place to live. For example capital developments at Beamish, the Bowes Museum, Monkwearmouth Station Museum and Newcastle's The Great North Museum project, which opened May 2009 and has already achieved half a million visits-smashing it's annual target of 350,000.

 

24 However, there was need for museums to start considering how they will achieve ongoing and incremental refurbishment of displays and facilities to maintain quality of visitor offer in line with visitor expecations, when well-used funding sources, such as HLF and the Northern Rock Foundation, are diminished or no longer available.

 

25 Living Places is a coalition of five leading national culture and sports agencies: Arts Council England, Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE), English Heritage, Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) and Sport England. It aims to ensure all communities, particularly those experiencing housing-led growth and regeneration can benefit from cultural and sporting opportunities through: Providing those people who are shaping communities with information, advice and support on the use of culture to create better places; aligning investment from the sporting and cultural sector with sustainable communities funding across organisational boundaries, so it works harder for people; and empowering communities to make cultural and sporting activity and infrastructure a part of their lives[13]. There is opportunity to explore how this activity can work with the Place Making Charter for Destination Management to position the importance of the visitor economy to a local area, clarify the roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders and assist in joining activity at all levels.[14]

 

 

5 October 2009

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[1] One North East (2006) Leading the Way, Regional Economic Strategy 2006, http://www.onenortheast.co.uk/lib/liReport/9653/Regional%20Economic%20Strategy%202006%20-2016.pdf, p129

[2] http://www.mla.gov.uk/what/raising_standards/accreditation

[3] MLA North East (2008) Regional Museum Strategy

[4] ibid

[5] http://www.enjoyengland.com/corporate/corporate-information/research-and-insights/statistics/Annual-Visitor-Attractions-Survey/Visitor-Attractions.aspx

[6] http://www.onenortheast.co.uk/lib/liReport/983/ONE%20Report%2013454_01.pdf

[7] North East Historic Environment Forum (2005) Economic Social and Cultural Impact Assessment of Heritage in the North East

[8] Economic Impact Appraisal Report, Caledonian Economics

[9] One North East (2008) Maximising the Contribution of Heritage to the North East Regional Economic Strategy and North East Tourism Strategy

[10] http://www.mla.gov.uk/what/programmes/renaissance

[11] www.mla.gov.uk/what/programmes/renaissance/~/media/Files/pdf/2009/Renaissance_Review_Report

[12] http://www.enjoyengland.com/corporate/corporate-information/Industry_Services/Visitor_Attractions/VAQAS/Case-Studies/Working-with-a-Regional-Development-Agency-(RDA).aspx

[13] http://www.living-places.org.uk/

[14] http://www.enjoyengland.com/Images/MB12432_A5%20Place%20Makingv9_tcm21-122345.pdf