Thank you so much for your support for this petition.
Nearly three months since the start of this petition and we have now had a response to our letters. The letter is from Councillor Jones rather than the Ipswich Museum Manager, so we are still not sure who is managing this important project.
Despite having nearly five times more people sign the petition than have been consulted on the museum redevelopment, the Council do not want to engage in a discussion with us or address any of your personal and thoughtful comments, some of which we included in our letter, because early on we amended the petition to make it more accurate.
So where do we take our concerns from here?
Have any of you also received responses to your letters to the council and museum? Do you still have concerns? Any ideas how we can protect the unique exhibits and atmosphere of the museum? Or know anything else about this project that we don’t? Please email us saveipswichmuseum@yahoo.com We would also be particularly interested in hearing from you if you are a young person 18-25, living in Ipswich, who is concerned about the proposed changes to the museum.
Our main concerns as information unfolds are –
-       the Ogilvie Bird Gallery is being dismantled  - we will never see this entire collection again after 2 October 2022
-       the unique atmosphere of the museum will be lost if the redevelopment is not highly sensitive
-       who is in charge of the project-what is the design overview?
-       the initial public consultation happened online in 2020 (during lockdown), when people were unable to be in the museum to sense what is so special about it and with people who had never visited – it is easy to want change when the stakes of what would be lost are not palpable
-       Other initial consultations were with teachers- is the redeveloped museum therefore aimed mainly at children? Also the curriculum, which teachers would support (and would want the museum to support them to deliver) is itself a shifting and political construct that will also date (we are both qualified teachers/university lecturers) and it would be quite narrow to make this the guiding principle of the redevelopment
-       University staff from four universities were also consulted (there is only one university in Ipswich)
The Museum will close on 2 October. (Not the end of the year as advertised at Heritage Open Weekend) The Friends of Ipswich Museum have been very approachable and responsive and have suggested that people who care about the future of the museum and want to have a say in it, should join the Friends. They are part funding this project. https://www.friendsofipswichmuseums.org.uk/join
There will be further public consultations, where I hope we will all be able to be involved, (but according to Colchester and Ipswich Museums Manager, Dr Frank Hargrave you will only be eligible to take part in the consultation if you are an Ipswich resident). These consultations will be announced in the coming weeks - I suppose they will announce this on the Ipswich Museums email newsletter via the Ipswich Borough Council website, so it would be worth signing up for this. https://www.ipswich.gov.uk/content/keep-touch-ipswich-museums
We hope they will take place while the museum is still open.
 
Do keep sharing this petition.
In the meantime visit the museum as it is now and photograph, draw, write, commit to memory what you love about it - we don’t know what will be there in 2025.