Dorset History Centre running out of space
It's applying to the Lottery Heritage Fund for money to help finance a new multi-million pound building
Dorset History Centre is to press ahead with a Lottery Heritage Fund bid to extend its storage space.
A previous application in 2017 was rejected.
If the new application is agreed the centre, which serves the whole county, could add a two-storey building over the existing car park to the rear of the site with the target of starting work in 2025.
The existing centre off Bridport Road, Dorchester was built in 1991 with an anticipated 25-years storage space but the repositories are now approaching capacity with little remaining space and archive material still coming in.
Initial costings had put the new build at around £3million, but inflation and material shortages since then are likely to have added significantly to the estimate.
Extra documents and artefacts from combining local councils in 2019 to create two unitary councils have added to the need for extra storage although many of the documents will be kept as a digital record.
Service manage for archives Sam Johnston told a meeting in Dorchester on Monday that the extension on site remained the most cost-effective option with the alternative of selling the site and building a new archive being prohibitive.
If the expansion option at Dorchester can be funded it would provide 25-30 years’ space but will still need match funding, likely to be around 40 per cent of the cost, from the two councils and donations.
Work currently going on behind the scenes includes archive staff working with architects and others to see if changes are needed to the original plans, drawn up more than five years ago, and preparing for a public consultation exercise to judge the general support for the project and to see if a enlarged archive is likely to attract more visitors.
Consultants are being used by the service to help pull together the Lottery bid, dubbed “Parchment and Pixels,” after getting a positive reaction from the Lottery Fund to an outline submission in May last year.
The fully worked bid is expected to be submitted to the Lottery fund in May 2023 asking for 60-65% of the total cost.
Mr Johnston said the project was “an all-encompassing piece of work” with great pressure to accurately assess inflation and contingency allowances at the correct level as the Lottery board would usually not entertain any uplift in their initial grant.
Dorchester councillor, Richard Biggs, who lives almost opposite the Bridport Road site said he had been disappointed the previous bid did not succeed but had high hopes for the new attempt.
He said if the country was to go into recession it could have a positive effect on building costs by keeping prices down.
The meeting also approved an increase in fees and charges averaging 5 per cent.