4 Feb 2014

New museum too small

9:21 pm on 4 February 2014

The Napier City Council has ordered a full investigation into the new Hawke's Bay Museum, which will include a review of why it will not be able to house its entire collection as originally intended.

The council-owned museum, known as MTG, has discovered only about 60 percent of its collection can be stored in the $18 million building despite it being originally intended to take all of it.

Napier Mayor Bill Dalton said he was disappointed MTG could not house its entire collection.

"We're really proud of this project but, naturally, it's a huge project and it needs a little fine tuning. At this stage, we're disappointed that the whole collection won't fit in. Importantly, though, we are undertaking a full investigation and a full review of the whole MTG project."

The investigation would also include a review of staffing levels and entry charges.

Museum director Douglas Lloyd Jenkins said there would be an additional cost in storing many of the 10,000 items in the collection off site.

"At the moment it is all stored very happily off site but we do need to look at what the long-term future of that off-site storage is and what the budget for that will be and where the money will come from."

The size of earthquake packaging for the collection and the size of air conditioning ducting had caused the space shortfall, he said.