The City Council is consulting on closure of the Canterbury Heritage Museum.

Those named below call on the City Council NOT to close the Museum and deny access to a comprehensive collection telling the story of Canterbury’s heritage, but to work with a consortium of archaeologists, historians, societies, universities, arts organisations, community groups, schools and volunteers, to renew and re-present the buildings and collections for the 21st century.

Our ambition will be to transform the building into a dynamic hub to explore and share new insights into the city for people who live, work or study in Canterbury or who come as visitors.

The first aim of our new consortium of supporters will be to work with Canterbury City Council on a plan to save the Museum in partnership. If that fails, we propose to form a new Trust to apply to take over operational management of the Museum, its collections and heritage buildings in Stour Street.

We will then seek to raise funds to redisplay the buildings and collections and promote them. We will also seek to provide programmes of learning and creative engagement for local people and visitors to experience and enjoy the whole of the city’s story set in one of Canterbury’s most inspiring and complete medieval buildings.

We call on the City Council to work with the consortium to achieve these objectives.

List of supporting institutions:

• Canterbury Archaeological Trust
• Friends of Canterbury Archaeological Trust
• Canterbury Christ Church University
• Centre for Kent History and Heritage, Canterbury Christchurch University
• Centre for Heritage (University of Kent)
• Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (University of Kent)
• The Canterbury Society
• Kent Archaeological Society
• Canterbury Heritage Design Forum
• Canterbury branch of the Historical Association
• Department of Classical & Archaeological Studies (University of Kent)
• Canterbury Tourist Guides
• The Oaten Hill and South Canterbury Association Local History Group
• Canterbury Historical and Archaeological Society
• Canterbury Commemoration Society
• Friends of Canterbury Museums
• Kent Family History Society
• www.historiccanterbury.com
• Commitee Members St Mildred's Area Community Society

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