The Three Rivers Museum Trust is set to benefit from a new £750-a-year lease from the district council, which it is hoped will allow the museum to access more grant funding.
Since its founding in 1987, the free-to-enter museum has been based at Basing House in Rickmansworth, but its existing lease was set to expire on May 31 next year.
With less than a year left, the museum could not apply for Arts Council accreditation.
At a council meeting last week (July 8), councillors of all parties agreed on a new 15-year lease for the museum.
Cllr Keith Martin, who represents Three Rivers District Council at the museum, said it is a “fantastic local cultural institution”, adding: “It’s the only body that’s collating, processing and communicating our local history.”
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With the district council set to be abolished in the coming years and replaced by a new unitary authority, Cllr Martin continued: “The last thing I wanted was the lease to expire when we were in the move to unitary authorities and lots of other things were going on.
“We asked officers … if they could come up with a lease to give the museum security of tenure.
“By having that security, the museum can apply for Arts Council accreditation, which will give them lots of other benefits, including applying for grants.”
The new lease will cost the museum trust £750 a year, with a £50 increase every five years.
Given the lease is being offered at well under market rate, and the museum will not be required to pay full maintenance costs, there is an “underlying net subsidy” of around £11,000 per year.
The museum, which is run entirely by volunteers, has agreed to pay £1,500 each year towards the council’s costs for running the building.
The Liberal Democrat leader of the council, Cllr Stephen Giles-Medhurst, said: “This is very favourable, as it rightly should be, to the museum trust which will in perpetuity preserve what is best about Three Rivers and indeed its predecessor authorities.”
Cllr Chris Mitchell, leader of the council’s Green group, said it was the “right way forward” for “something that we consider [to be] of district-wide importance”.
But Conservative Cllr Andrea Fraser suggested the council should “be looking also at the rents that are given to Batchworth Community Council”, which is also based in Basing House.
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