It's over a month since the Old Grammar School on King's Norton Green was voted this year's winner of the BBC's Restoration competition.
By now memories are already fading, though not for the people who have to turn these vote winners into long-term projects. Getting that right, as the Victoria Baths in Manchester (last year's winner) shows, can be a struggle. (The baths, it should be added, are back on track according to Locum, which is advising the project team).
By comparison, this year there were fewer people attempting to set up museums, with one of the exceptions being the Hall of Clestrain in Orkney, hoping to become a boat museum.
That project was featured in Museums Journal in July, though sadly our influence doesn't extend to the TV-viewing public: it was beaten in the Scottish heat by Knockando in Banffshire. Both projects, like most featured in the programme, hope to continue - and, indeed, may suceed. Last year, the Heritage Lottery Fund awarded roughly £8m to featured projects, on top of the £3m it gave to the winner.
But all the talk of new museums and cultural centres must have made at least a few readers feel nervous - and not just in Scotland. It wasn't so long ago that the Scottish Museums Council published a rather hard-hitting document about setting up museums.
The document didn't set out to actively discourage creating them, but it did point out how difficult it was to make them work in these times of tight public purses and competition for visitors. And then there were the much-reported problems of a whole range of museums, from the Lead Mining Museum in Wanlockhead to Verdant Works in Dundee (which, incidentally, is one of this year's Museum and Gallery Month winners).
Also, in the past couple of months, there have been question marks over a range of museums, from Weymouth Museum to the Andrew Logan Museum of Sculpture in mid Wales.
This doesn't mean, of course, that all new projects should be frowned on. There is always room for something new and exciting - Magna in Rotherham or the Maritime Museum at Falmouth, for example. It is just that a lot of the Restoration projects seem to lack the kind of innovation in content or interpretation that will raise them above the average, interesting as their buildings are.
Personally, I preferred the runner-up - the wonderful Memorial Hall in Newbridge, funded by the miners early last century and still actively used as a centre for all sorts of community events, from brass band practice to NUM advice surgeries. Part of the building is already in use, the other half, an Art Deco cinema and dance hall, could easily be restored.
But what struck me about the Restoration programme is that with no money to pay for many of these crumbling buildings, perhaps it might be better if at least some were sold into commercial hands. At least then they may be preserved for the future, instead of decaying into the publicly owned land around them.
By now memories are already fading, though not for the people who have to turn these vote winners into long-term projects. Getting that right, as the Victoria Baths in Manchester (last year's winner) shows, can be a struggle. (The baths, it should be added, are back on track according to Locum, which is advising the project team).
By comparison, this year there were fewer people attempting to set up museums, with one of the exceptions being the Hall of Clestrain in Orkney, hoping to become a boat museum.
That project was featured in Museums Journal in July, though sadly our influence doesn't extend to the TV-viewing public: it was beaten in the Scottish heat by Knockando in Banffshire. Both projects, like most featured in the programme, hope to continue - and, indeed, may suceed. Last year, the Heritage Lottery Fund awarded roughly £8m to featured projects, on top of the £3m it gave to the winner.
But all the talk of new museums and cultural centres must have made at least a few readers feel nervous - and not just in Scotland. It wasn't so long ago that the Scottish Museums Council published a rather hard-hitting document about setting up museums.
The document didn't set out to actively discourage creating them, but it did point out how difficult it was to make them work in these times of tight public purses and competition for visitors. And then there were the much-reported problems of a whole range of museums, from the Lead Mining Museum in Wanlockhead to Verdant Works in Dundee (which, incidentally, is one of this year's Museum and Gallery Month winners).
Also, in the past couple of months, there have been question marks over a range of museums, from Weymouth Museum to the Andrew Logan Museum of Sculpture in mid Wales.
This doesn't mean, of course, that all new projects should be frowned on. There is always room for something new and exciting - Magna in Rotherham or the Maritime Museum at Falmouth, for example. It is just that a lot of the Restoration projects seem to lack the kind of innovation in content or interpretation that will raise them above the average, interesting as their buildings are.
Personally, I preferred the runner-up - the wonderful Memorial Hall in Newbridge, funded by the miners early last century and still actively used as a centre for all sorts of community events, from brass band practice to NUM advice surgeries. Part of the building is already in use, the other half, an Art Deco cinema and dance hall, could easily be restored.
But what struck me about the Restoration programme is that with no money to pay for many of these crumbling buildings, perhaps it might be better if at least some were sold into commercial hands. At least then they may be preserved for the future, instead of decaying into the publicly owned land around them.
