Future Royal Marines Museum could be moved from Portsmouth if lottery bid fails, heritage boss warns

Finance tsars at the National Lottery Heritage Fund are just days away from revealing whether or not they have backed a £3.9m plea for cash from the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) to construct the new attraction.

A go-ahead would mean the ambitious proposals to open a Royal Marines Museum in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard would be almost guaranteed.

But if the lottery chiefs reject the bid it could be the final nail in the coffin for the city’s hope of again being the home to the Commando museum.

Now Professor Dominic Tweddle, director general of the NMRN, has urged the nation to ‘step up to the plate for the Royal Marines’ and said it would be a ‘travesty’ if support was axed.

Speaking exclusively to The News, he said: ‘Whenever the nation needs the Royal Marines to sacrifice for it, they are there giving their lives and taking losses.

‘This is the point at which the nation needs to remember that. It now needs to step up to the plate for the Royal Marines.’

The NMRN closed the former Royal Marines Museum in Eastney more than three years ago, while it sought to sell the barracks to help fund the new site, inside the current Action Stations base at the dockyard.

Heritage leaders had counted on the lottery to help with £12.9m proposal.

But their plans were dealt a crushing blow 18 months ago when the funding plea was rejected, leaving the museum in limbo.

Prof Tweddle said he remained hopeful about the second bid but admitted his team was drafting up contingency plans if the worst was to happen.

He added: ‘If the lottery fails to play ball – and we have to contemplate that – we’re still going to produce a Royal Marines Museum but we will have to ask ourselves if it is possible to do it in Portsmouth because that’s twice the National Lottery Heritage Fund will have turned it down.

‘Now it’s all speculation. We aren’t there yet. But it will cause us to think very seriously about going somewhere else.’

A possible plan could see the museum moved ‘north’ to the NMRN’s other site in Hartlepool. The vast collection’s storage would remain in Portsmouth.

It’s hoped such a shake-up could unlock additional funding options that aren’t available in Portsmouth.

‘There will be a new Royal Marines Museum by hook or by crook,’ Prof Tweddle insisted.

‘This is not “shock, horror – museum is going to leave Portsmouth”; this is us having to contemplate a number of options.

‘Trustees have decided it's going to be here, so that’s the policy and that’s what we’re trying to deliver.’

The sale of the site at Eastney is expected to take place in the next couple of months, Prof Tweddle revealed.

To support the museum effort, the NMRN has launched its own campaign to raise £5m to help pay for the attraction’s build.

Prof Tweddle added it had been ‘difficult’ for previous attempts to ‘break through’ on the national stage and claimed people were ‘dismissive’ when it came to support military museums.

‘Military museums are not fashionable causes…they are always last in the queue for funding and they tend to be rather under-regarded – until the nation fights a war,’ he said.

The National Lottery Heritage Fund is expected to make its decision on March 4.

If approved, the NMRN will have to submit a more detailed application.

Work would begin on the site at the end of 2021, if this second phase is passed, with the museum opening in early 2023.

To donate to the fundraising appeal or ‘adopt an object’ in the museum collection, see: newroyalmarinesmuseum.co.uk/donate-now