Lottery bid decision in December will determine fate of £13m Flintshire and Denbighshire archive plan
A £13 million plan to build a new records office for Flintshire and Denbighshire next to Theatr Clwyd could be given the go-ahead by Christmas.
An application for the National Lottery Heritage Fund to provide £7.3 million of capital funding to deliver the project will be decided in December. If the bid is successful work is expected to begin next year with the record office completed by autumn 2028.
If approved, that funding will be added to just over £3m from Flintshire County Council, £2m from Denbighshire County Council and additional contributions from Welsh Government to deliver the new joint record office.
The facility will be situated next door to Theatr Clwyd and will house historical documents currently kept at Ruthin Gaol and Hawarden Rectory.
As well as using digital technology to make the records more accessible to visitors and researchers, the new facility will also work jointly with the theatre to bring history to life through performance and engagement projects.
It will also share the theatre facilities including its cafe.
According to the officer heading up the project – Chief Officer for Education and Youth Claire Homard – decommissioning Hawarden Rectory will cost around £30,000. There will also be an additional cost of £128,950 Land Transaction Tax to cover the move from Ruthin Gaol.
“Council’s have a statutory responsibility to protect and preserve materials that are vital to the public record,” she said. “Both these buildings are full to capacity and are not ideal in terms of the way members of the wider public can actually access those materials.
“This is the only proposal in the UK for an archive building to be co-located with a producing theatre.
“That brings an incredible opportunity to bring archive material to life by using the skills of our strategic partner and some of that work’s been undertaken already very successfully.
“We’ve had the Mold Riots outdoor performance in the town. We’ve had monologues shown on the BBC based on records from the hospital in Denbigh.
“The National Lottery Heritage Fund see that as a real strength of the project. They’re not just interested in the building. Their objective is for the councils to really expand the use of archives across communities to support our communities, to widen participation, particularly with groups who perhaps traditionally don’t ever use an archive, don’t know what it’s for, perhaps feel the archive doesn’t represent their particular circumstances.”
Funding is not yet guaranteed however.
Despite this councillors on Flintshire’s Education, Youth and Culture Overview and Scrutiny Committee warmly welcomed the proposals.
Cllr David Healey suggested the proposals would be good for residents’ mental health.
“The preservation of the heritage is good in itself,” he said, “I think it’s also beneficial for people’s mental health and well-being that they’re able to look at heritage and see how their own story fits within the wider context – that is kind of therapeutic.
“To be able to deliver all of this and to staff it and resource it you need both capital funding and revenue funding. Otherwise, things including the outreach service would just be a bit of a pipe dream.”
Ms Homard confirmed that revenue funding currently provided for the service by each council would be restructured and funnelled into the new facility.
She admitted the number of staff required would reduce, but added that redundancies were not anticipated.
“The two teams in Hawarden and Ruthin work closely already – almost as one team,” said Ms Homard.
“This will give us a really efficient model and the opportunity for that expertise to be shared on a daily basis.
“Both teams are are currently working on their staffing structures but there is no intentionthat there would be any redundancies. We’ve got a long lead-in time for this particular project with the opportunity through natural turnover to make that transition smoothly.”
By Alec Doyle – Local Democracy Reporter
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