Current Goole Hub plans represent a closure of Goole Museum in real terms, damaging the community and putting local history at risk.

On 23/08/22 the East Riding of Yorkshire Council (ERYC) opened public consultation on a proposal to create a single Goole Hub on the Goole Leisure Centre site which would integrate the existing leisure centre, library, museum and customer services under one roof.

Although the new Goole Hub will allegedly include a new 'Heritage Museum', plans reveal that this consists of a space which is less than 10% of the space available in the existing Goole Museum.

Members of the public who attended the consultation event on 25th August were told no plans had been put in place for the extensive and internationally important museum collections, revealing that the proposed ‘Heritage Museum’ inside the Hub is not a museum, but a single small exhibition space that may have multiple uses. 

The Goole Hub plans represent in real terms a closure of Goole’s only museum. This move will have a negative impact on the town in the following ways:

• The town’s important heritage and history will be less accessible to the people of Goole
• The internationally important collection of Reuben Chappell paintings held at Goole may be moved elsewhere, split up or sold off
• Local research and family history carried out at the museum is at risk
• The many regular groups and events hosted at the current museum, including a theatre group, embroidery group, carers group, addiction recovery group, book club, craft workshop and Lego workshop will not be able to continue
• Current history projects running at the museum, such as the recording of memories around Goole docks and Sunday league football, and the cataloguing of local historical photographs, will be in jeopardy
• The museum will no longer be able to provide work experience opportunities to young people and disabled people

This petition is designed to amplify local and public concerns about the loss the current Goole Hub plans represent to the town and people of Goole. We are asking ERYC to revise the plans for the museum in the following ways:

• Scrap any plans that reduce Goole Museum services or floor space
• Ensure the collections are retained in Goole and continue to be curated by Goole Museum
• Ensure Goole Museum can continue to perform a central role in Goole’s community by providing adequate space for groups to meet
• Ensure revisions to the plans for the museum are made in dialogue with local people, historians, those who use the museum and those who work in the museum.