There is a bit of a storm-in-a-teacup given the news that museums are consolidating some of their collections at new facility in TVSP. The Thames Valley Science Park, in Shinfield, Berkshire is due to re-house some collections from the British Museum, the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, and the Natural History Museum (NHM). These are all based in London and they’re moving to TVSP in Reading, which is outside London, but not really that far, it’s not the Orkney Islands for goodness sake!
The Natural History Museum (NHM) is facing criticism from scientists and academics, about this move, based upon the notion that distributing the collection will lead to a lack of expertise and losing the centre of excellence at the institution. As most of the collections are actually being consolidated, many are in backroom storage that never sees the light of day (yeh I know that might be a necessity for certain things!) it seems a bit tenuous. Could it be that these experts don’t want to move out of London? Or lose their London-weighing funding?
The upside is the TVSP is being built, which will replace these institutions ageing buildings, and crumbling storage space. The British Museum has already moved thousands of objects to a new Archaeological Research Centre on the site, which is due to open shortly. So it might just be for the better. Unless they don’t allow visitors. And to be fair once it’s done, no-one will notice.
Cultural Highlights 