No mercy for the Cornwall Aviation Heritage Centre
Scramble reported on 1 September 2022 on the imminent closure of this museum. In our post of 27 December we were able to bring good news: the CAHC could relocate. But as announced by the Cornwall Aviation Heritage Centre on 5 April 2023, it has received a devastating blow to its exciting plans to relocate to a new site.
We therefore quote the text as it appeared on 'Change.org': 'The Cornwall Council insists that the museum must vacate its current premises immediately, even though the new site will not be ready for at least 12 to 18 months. This means that the museum’s plans to relocate are in tatters.
And immediately means immediately – on 4 April the Council formally advised CAHC it must clear the entire site and move thousands of valuable and vulnerable heritage exhibits by Tuesday 11 April 2023 otherwise the Council’s agent will ‘make arrangements for them to be disposed of’.
The museum was sure that they had fixed the threat to their future when local land-owner and businessman Rundle Weldhen offered a new site alongside the airport and entrepreneur philanthropist Mark Lancaster (SDL Ltd/SDL Foundation) pledged GBP 1 million for the relocation project.
CAHC and Mark Lancaster were in negotiations to remain at the current premises and trade until December 2023 to raise additional funds and prepare the new site for the relocation project but, as of 24 March 2023 this request was flatly refused - even though the airport and Council have not published any plans for the existing premises once they have been vacated by CAHC.
Despite publicly stating that they would support the museum if it presented a credible and deliverable proposal to relocate, Cornwall Council has insisted that CAHC vacate its current premises immediately.
The airport has agreed to allow some space on the old disused runway to temporarily store some of the historic aircraft whilst they are prepared for transport or scrapping, and the Council had scheduled a meeting for 13 April to discuss storage options for the more vulnerable indoor aircraft and heritage exhibits, some of which need to be protected while arrangements are put in place to return them to their RAF, Navy and private owners. This meeting now appears to have been unilaterally abandoned, without any advice from the Council.
Museum founder and director Richard Spencer-Breeze said ‘Clearing the site by 11 April, over the Easter weekend is completely impossible. We only received notification that Mark Lancaster’s proposal for CAHC to trade until December had been refused 10 days ago and we immediately started the process of clearing the museum from the site, but this deadline is ridiculous. We’ve fought for so long, but we can’t go on like this any longer. This Council seems committed to seeing this museum close forever.
We found a new site after they turned down all of our previous proposals without even discussing them, we raised £1million, we received the unequivocal support of every major education body in the County, we offered the once in a lifetime chance for Cornwall to have a unique, all-year, state-of-the-art aerospace attraction and education hub. All they had to do was let us stay where we are for another 8 to 12 months. But no, they won’t even let us relocate in realistic fashion, they would rather see this one-of-a-kind, award-winning business disappear. It’s utterly disgraceful.’
The online petition to save the Cornwall Aviation Heritage Centre has attracted more than 40,000 signatures and thousands of heartfelt messages of outrage and support. WE THANK EVERY ONE OF YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT'. ('unquote')
Source: Change.org
Photo: CAHC