Council pledges extra £500,000 to museum project

A museum will reopen early next year after an additional £500,000 in funding was pledged to the project.

Ipswich Museum, which opened in High Street in 1881, has been closed since October 2022 to undergo a £11.8m renovation.

On Tuesday, councillors at Ipswich Borough Council unanimously agreed to spend an extra £500,000 on the scheme – taking the total to £12.3m – to get the refurbishment completed.

The additional funding accounts for unexpected costs, high price levels and ongoing inflation, according to the council.

Carole Jones, the authority's lead for museums, said the council was looking at the costs with "an eagle eye", but stressed the extra money was essential to delivering the project.

"We have been here several times, but we are now in the final phase of this important project," she said.

"It is beautiful, but now we come to pay the bill for that building work," she added.

The council hoped the restoration of the museum, which was initially due to reopen in 2025, would highlight the building's Victorian past as one of the first public museums in the country.

The council has applied to the National Lottery Heritage Fund with the hope that half of the extra money needed could be covered by a grant, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Ian Fisher, the leader of the Conservative Group, said the authority was so far into the project that it would be impossible to vote against it.

"Undoubtedly, it is a wonderful project, and it will be a jewel in the crown for Ipswich," he said.

"We can't keep learning lessons and taking expert advice and be in the same position."

Jones, however, said given the scale of the project it was always "bound to be complicated".

"We could not know precisely what those complications would be when we began," she added.

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