RIP Firepower RA Museum - Long Live the Cultural Quarter

You really couldn't make this up:

http://www.greenwichconservatives.com/news/1624

http://www.greenwichconservatives.com/news/1631

http://landships.activeboard.com/t57591782/the-royal-artillery-museum-firepower-to-leave-woolwichlondon/

 

Disastrous news and makes no sense at all to me. Back handers galore I reckon.

 

My mind is definitely boggled!

 

How pathetic, I was looking forward to visiting there sometime when I retire.

 

Move back to the Rotunda? It was still there last time I passed that way.

Chris

 

good day swiper.m.yesterday.02:12pm.re:R.I.P.firepower r.a. museum-longlive the cultural quarter,i would not like to think that bribery and coruption on such a scale.can close down a monument to men who gave there lives for the nation.i hope they solve the situation to everybody's approaval.regards bernard85

 

What a Stupid decision it is a part of the heritage of Woolwich and needs to remain so! Bloody councils grasping again and sod the rest of us.
My daughter visited the Firepower museum with me and she really enjoyed herself as did I

 

Shameful.
We don't care about our past or the men and women who gave their lives for us. I've visited the musuem as part of my research. Have to say the people there were so helpful, polite, informative. That land and building are worth money, at the end of the day it's all they care about. It's as much about the building, the area. Shame on the council.

 

I don't think it as simple as the council throwing Firepower out. There is a bigger question of how Fiurepower is to be funded.

Back in the 1990s I thought the best place for Firepower was Larkhill. The one big thing an artillery museum ought to be able to offer is the occasional sight and sound of the guns firing and the fall of shot. Flying days make Duxford, and mobility days make Bovignton special. There is a recruitment and PR value in doing this, but we live in philistine times. It isn't certain how much of the Gunner hierarchy have enough of a passion for Regimental heritage to press the case on the grounds of developing the "Moral component of fighting power." .

I am not sure there would be an appetite for a second Firepower and I fear that the alternatives are a corner of someone else's museum. To see what this looks like, try the Fusiliers Museum in the corner of the Tower of London or the Middlesex collection in the National Army Museum. The only UK museums big enough to house the Fire-power collection would be the IWM,at Duxford , RAC at Bovington or the Royal Armouries. Whether it makes sense for the Gunners to be third in line at the IWM (to the aeroplanes and Land warfare collection) or second to the tanks at Bovington. The Royal Armouries look like an even worse option. Neither Leeds nor Portsmouth offer any great improvement over Woolwich as a tourist destination and both struggle financially. (Though the real problem with leeds is the decision that allowed the collection to be tenants of Royal Armouries International, a commercial business allowed to exploit the collection as an events venue, while starving it of investment..

There is further proble,m with moving Firepower to the country. Fire-power is more than a collection of kit. It houses the archives, a valuable resource for historians. Firepower is accessible by public transport. .

I think they should have the balls to stick with Woolwich. Development in London is moving along the river on either side of the Thames estuary. Moving a major museum out of London looks a bad move.

 

There are increasingly strong rumours of a new RA museum at Larkhill. Perhaps some of the former Firepower collection will end up there.

CS

 

Here you go, for what it's worth, the petition.

https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/64840

 

A further announcement on the subject.

http://www.firepower.org.uk/index.php/2014/05/27/a-statement-by-the-chairman-of-the-royal-artillery-museum-board/