Something’s Not Right Here

We featured a story last week that concerned the Marconi Veterans being heartlessly booted out from the Sandford Mill site by the council. Read the full story here.

For eight years the volunteers had lovingly gathered and restored exhibits of vintage and historic broadcast equipment, as part of the Technical Demonstration Unit. including the world famous Writtle Hut.

On 13/07/21 the council posted a statement on Facebook corrrecting “misinformation” concerning the issue, but were immediately challenged by a number of residents.

A number of issues were raised:

1. If the council claim that Sandford Mill is a storage facility and not a museum, do the Museum Accreditation standards actually apply ? We’ve read the standards and can find no mention of storage facilities. Download the standards here.

2. The council’s main issue seems to be that volunteers were maintaining “working order” exhibits, and not keeping them in their original condition. Of course, many accredited museums do display “working order” exhibits, like the National Rail Museum and British Museum.

3. The volunteers have gathered a library of heritage replacement parts, and were making repairs using suitable like for like parts, in line with Museum Accreditation Standards.

4. The Technical Demonstration Unit was regularly used for educational purposes, with it’s links to local industry and broadcast history, surely this is worth preserving ?

5. Since the accreditation standards are from 2018, and don’t appear to have changed, why has this now become an issue ?

6. Does the fact that volunteers are carrying out “engineering tasks” or storing a few of their own artefacts (at a designated storage facility), really mean that the collection is not “well organised”.

7. The council claim that the volunteers were not given a two week deadline to remove their belongings and personal artefacts. However an email posted up by a resident, showed this to be incorrect.

AGAINST THE LOCAL PLAN ?

There are proposals to allow development on the land to the south of Sandford Mill, and allow new vehicular access to Maldon Rd.

The Sandford Mill Museum (sorry storage area) is directly mentioned in the Local Plan, Special Policy Areas, SPA5:

The solution is here in 7.379, re-use and re-purpose one of the existing buildings as storage and and a workshop space for the Marconi engineers, and take the step towards further preserving “Chelmsford’s unique industrial heritage”.

Please Support the Marconi Veterans

It’s clear to us, that something isn’t right here. Are the council simply using the accreditation standards as an excuse to remove the volunteers from the site ?

We urge you all to contact your local councillors to ask the council to reconsider this decision.

Find your local councillors here