NML opens £45.6m tender for twin museum revamps

Everything moves at a snail’s pace, the Maritime Museum has been shrouded in white sheeting for over 12 months and looks like it won’t reopen till at least 2028.
Meanwhile the nearby Tate Gallery has been shut for over 2 years and won’t reopen till at least 2027.
The Birkenhead ferry terminal has been out of action for about 3 years, Broadgreen Station has been a tip now for 3 years, meanwhile the much lauded and anticipated Baltic railway station project, due to start in January this year is delayed indefinitely, the list could go on.

For heavens sakes it’s been closed for ages, and they are only just rendering now??

It is high time that NML were made to be accountable to the city, rather than the equally dreadful and not at all interested in Liverpool DCMS.

Thought this job had already started, feels like it’s been closed forever!

Will end in tears this. National Museums Liverpool have really made a pigs ear out of their plans and left Liverpool without 2 major attractions for a number of years. They need to be held accountable.

There’s a sort of innocence to the comments about NML and other public bodies being held accountable. They ‘earn’ their living by using the force of law to take money from us each month. Performance, accountability, quality? That’s for the little people in the private sector.

Great that we have conservation specialist on board. Can we not do the same with conservationist for the built environment and revisit the Stop The Rot campaign but to embrace the suburbs and stop turning them into licensed hell holes.

So the soft strip works have taken this long? I wonder whether any of the cultural assets that are currently closed will return to the fray before 2030 at this rate. With the the delay of the Baltic railway station perhaps there is an opportunity to revisit the staggering cost and then deliver something that is more in line with what’s actually required i.e. similar to Brunswick, a basic and functioning step on, step off, instead of all the unnecessary external design features that have been shown in the various publicity images.

Re Baltic Station my view is the money has been allocated by Government and has to be used as such, also any changes in design will cause further long delays and possible cancellation. I liked the station design, it was class, but we have to lay the blame for the delay with the Mayor and his team, how could they not know National Rail’s contracting team was unavailable, so now they have to find another contractor, it’s a shambles and this is a recurring theme.

With regard to the various comments about work not being started on the project, a quick look at the quayside around Canning Dock will show that one part of the overall project namely the reworking of one Canning’s dry docks and quayside is very much in progress………..sadly. I really disagree with the plans for this whole project because in my mind Liverpool is still a major maritime city and port and yet we don’t have many large maritime exhibits that people of all ages and backgrounds can engage with. In pure and simple terms I mean ships and boats. We need more ships and less glass cases and on trend ideas so that hopefully young people can be inspired to make a career in the maritime industry as many, many people in our families and in our fine maritime city have. The ships and boats would also be a great way for families to engage with their own maritime history too. The quaysides, dry docks and the Royal Albert Dock should just be a mass ships and boats of all kinds and as people approach the waterfront they should be greeted by a skyline full of masts and funnels. That would be my dream for a real maritime museum and waterfront but I know that sadly it will never happen because it is not ‘on trend’.

Brendan R – where are all the ships you envisage coming from?

Nobody seriously believes that the Baltic Station will ever be built?

Re the Baltic station the hollowing out of Merseytravel due to LCRCA sucking out its resources has been a disaster for all transport schemes. It didn’t happen at TfGM , Rotherham has a lot to answer for.

Re: [email protected] 18th April. Liverpool very sadly lost ‘one of its own’ namely the Bar lightship ‘the Planet’ when it departed for the river Severn. That would have been great to have had on show. What about the historic warships collection that was at Birkenhead Docks and that was broken up in more ways than one? What about the coastal vessel the De Wadden that once occupied part of a dry dock? The original plans were to restore it but sadly that never happened. What about one of the former Isle of Man ferries that were sadly moved on? One of those would have been a great exhibit and a great exhibition space too. Many ports big and small have large ship exhibits but Liverpool ‘the gateway to the Atlantic’ just has a former pilot cutter on show If those ports can find and locate such ships then so should we. We need ships on show rather than just more glass cases.

Re: April 18th 8.46 Anonymous. With regard to where all the ‘large exhibits’ (ships) that I would like to see come from to be shown in Canning and Royal Albert dock, Liverpool sadly lost one of its own namely the Bar lightship to a new destination down south a few years ago and that would have been great. We also lost the historic warships collection from Birkenhead too. Those ships would have been great too! Sadly that collection has now been broken up in more ways than one. I feel sure that with a little bit of effort and with few enquiries then suitable vessels could be found. If other port cities both large and small can do it then why can’t we?

Liverpool is a shell of what it once was. So sad. It’s also starting to look very dystopian.

Why does the historic Albert Dock building need to have a ‘modern’ glass frontage for a museum?
It is unnecessary, unsightly and inappropriate.
The neighbouring plans for the extension to the Martin Luther King building are incomprehensible and they will make Liverpool a laughing stock.