On Saturday 18th January the Friends of the Cromwell Museum will be collecting signatures on a paper copy of the Cambridgeshire County Council petition outside the Museum from 10.30am onwards.

The signatures are mounting up on both petitions. The SurveyMonkey petition, which is open to everyone, has now received over 2,400 signatories from around the world – a fantastic achievement in such a short time.  Today we are also pleased to announce that the Cambridgeshire County Council ePetition has received over 1,000 signatures from people who live, work or study in Cambridgeshire.  However, we need more people to sign if the ePetition is to have the maximum benefit: 3,000 signatures would force a debate of full council and we have until the 5 February to achieve this number.

Sadly, it appears that, to date, lobbying has had no effect on the Council’s proposal to remove the funding from the Museum. When the draft budget was discussed at the Cabinet meeting of the County Council earlier this week, no amendment was made.

This means that the proposal to withdraw funding will now go forward to the full meeting of Council on 18th February. We can only hope that the proposal to withdraw all funding will be subject to amendment at the Council meeting.

The Friends have been informed that a consultant has been hired to look at alternative options for running the Museum, with a reporting date in April.

To take a final decision before learning the outcome of the consultant’s work would, we believe,  be deeply regrettable.