Fight steps up to save history

MARTIN DE RUYTER/Nelson Mail

SORT IT: From left, Joy Stephens, Penny Griffith, Karen Stade and Ken Wright decry Nelson's inadequate archive rooms.

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The small but dedicated posse of Nelson's heritage guardians are gathering strength in the fight to be heard over the need to preserve regional history.

The group gathered outside the Nelson Provincial Museum's research rooms in Isel Park on Saturday, World Heritage Day, in protest against the lack of funding for the building and its collections.

Golden Bay heritage campaigner Penny Griffith said assurance was needed that the building at Isel Park, which houses close to two million treasures, had a strong and confident future.

She said a new regional archive building was needed urgently but was not in the Nelson or Tasman council draft community plans for the next 10 years.

The museum and research building are governed by the Tasman Bays Heritage Trust, a council-controlled organisation (CCO) jointly owned by the Tasman district and Nelson city councils.

The Nelson Provincial Museum, established in 1841, is the country's oldest museum, and holds some of the country's most valuable collections, including nationally important photographic collections estimated to be worth $30 million.

The building at Isel Park was completed in 1973, but was no longer adequate for the collection, staff or the public, Ms Griffith said.

Heritage trust chief executive Peter Millward said around 1000 people had visited the Isel facility in the last 12 months, which was a "fraction" of the total number of research inquiries from the public by telephone, letter and email.

"Staff there would handle four to five times that number of inquiries each year for onsite research," he said.

Ms Griffith said the space available for the public to research material was completely inadequate.

Retired academic Nola Leov, who has a long involvement in preserving regional history, said the fight to draw attention to the plight of the museum was hard work.

"It's all rather dispiriting, and it does slow up research.

"Now that I'm 81, I'm starting to panic," she said.

Miss Leov said she got the impression that the "whole matter of saving documents was secondary to artefacts", when the two went hand in hand.

Ms Griffith said the group planned to use the public consultation process available through the councils' community plans to draw attention to the issue.

"This group here today could be the seminal beginning of a new support group a collective that will make submissions," she said.

Miss Griffith said the ultimate outcome would be a purpose-built facility designed to suit the needs of the public, staff and the collections. She added she would like to see the councils reinstate the $143,000 cut from the museum's budget in 2006, which would help the current staffing situation.

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