A consortium of Tate, Cornwall County Council and Penwith District Council is hoping to submit a planning application later this month despite local concerns that the proposals, which will put the extension on an adjoining car park, will create traffic and parking problems, block views to the sea and disturb neighbours.
The proposals come out of an Economic Impact Assessment report published by the South West Regional Development Agency in August 2004.
It concluded that, unless the current building was reconfigured or relocated, then the Tate would need to manage visitor numbers downwards. This last option would be ‘self-defeating’, said Alex Beard, the gallery’s deputy director.
The proposed extension would provide two more galleries and an education area, allowing more space to be devoted to the St Ives school of painters and making room for the 241,000 visitors a year — more than three times the original estimate of 70,000 — while also allowing for a 20 per cent increase in future visitor figures.
According to Mark Osterfield, the project director from Cornwall County Council, the extension would also provide badly needed loading facilities: currently the gallery has to close three times a year for two weeks at a time while works are craned over the roof.
Osterfield was pragmatic about local animosity towards the project, saying: ‘The difficulty with consultation is that you ask people what they think, and if they say they don’t like it and you don’t change it, then they feel that they haven’t been consulted.’
Osterfield said the decision to sink the extension into the hill was a result of the consultation with local residents, and added that further changes to the building were planned as a result of concerns raised at a meeting in November last year.
But Toni Carver, the editor of the St Ives Times and Echo, questioned claims by the museum that there were a number of people passionately in favour of the proposals, saying that he hadn’t seen much support for the plans outside the county council and the Tate.
‘If they steamroll these plans through, it will be dark days for support for Tate St Ives,’ he said. The gallery has also faced pressure from a local group calling itself Keep St Ives Special, which garnered some 2,000 signatures opposing the proposals.
One local resident in favour of the plans is Michael Kilby, the proprietor of the nearby Garrack Hotel, who said: ‘Those people being negative obviously didn’t experience the late 1980s here, when St Ives was not going anywhere. The Tate has brought a lot of kudos to the town.’
Tamsin Daniel, the museums and heritage officer for Penwith District Council, said: ‘This is not a St Ives project, but an international project. The residents have their concerns, but this is bigger than a town project.’
Patrick Steel
The proposals come out of an Economic Impact Assessment report published by the South West Regional Development Agency in August 2004.
It concluded that, unless the current building was reconfigured or relocated, then the Tate would need to manage visitor numbers downwards. This last option would be ‘self-defeating’, said Alex Beard, the gallery’s deputy director.
The proposed extension would provide two more galleries and an education area, allowing more space to be devoted to the St Ives school of painters and making room for the 241,000 visitors a year — more than three times the original estimate of 70,000 — while also allowing for a 20 per cent increase in future visitor figures.
According to Mark Osterfield, the project director from Cornwall County Council, the extension would also provide badly needed loading facilities: currently the gallery has to close three times a year for two weeks at a time while works are craned over the roof.
Osterfield was pragmatic about local animosity towards the project, saying: ‘The difficulty with consultation is that you ask people what they think, and if they say they don’t like it and you don’t change it, then they feel that they haven’t been consulted.’
Osterfield said the decision to sink the extension into the hill was a result of the consultation with local residents, and added that further changes to the building were planned as a result of concerns raised at a meeting in November last year.
But Toni Carver, the editor of the St Ives Times and Echo, questioned claims by the museum that there were a number of people passionately in favour of the proposals, saying that he hadn’t seen much support for the plans outside the county council and the Tate.
‘If they steamroll these plans through, it will be dark days for support for Tate St Ives,’ he said. The gallery has also faced pressure from a local group calling itself Keep St Ives Special, which garnered some 2,000 signatures opposing the proposals.
One local resident in favour of the plans is Michael Kilby, the proprietor of the nearby Garrack Hotel, who said: ‘Those people being negative obviously didn’t experience the late 1980s here, when St Ives was not going anywhere. The Tate has brought a lot of kudos to the town.’
Tamsin Daniel, the museums and heritage officer for Penwith District Council, said: ‘This is not a St Ives project, but an international project. The residents have their concerns, but this is bigger than a town project.’
Patrick Steel
