A multi-million pound revamp of one of Glasgow’s most historic attractions has stalled - as it emerged the Scottish Government has refused to commit vital funding to the project.
Ministers have snubbed a plea to help tackle a funding gap over plans for a £35.9m overhaul of the People’s Palace and Winter Gardens.
The Herald can reveal there is less than £20m in place for the project to secure the future of what is described as “an invaluable cultural and heritage asset” for the city. A planned reopening of the attraction in 2027 has been delayed indefinitely.
Read more:
- People's Palace is closing for three years. Here's what's going on
- New home for Scottish art treasures secures £56m deal
- Scottish Government agrees £20m Edinburgh concert hall bail out
City leaders, who hoped to secure £4.5m in last month’s Scottish Budget announcement, said they were “disappointed” that there had been nothing at all earmarked for the project at the same time as Edinburgh was securing huge new investment in its cultural infrastructure.
They have suggested there is an “asymmetric” pattern of cultural funding for the two cities after nearly £80m worth of support was confirmed for three major projects in the Scottish capital.
Glasgow Life, which runs the city’s main public museums and galleries, has also called for a total rethink of how they are supported by the government in future.
The council-funded charity claimed the city “did not receive a single penny” to meet the running costs of what it described as “internationally significant assets for this country”.
The project to revamp the People’s Palace and its neighbouring glasshouse has failed to secure any direct government funding for the overhaul nearly two years after the 19th century museum closed to the public.
Plans to reopen the attraction by 2027 have been shelved while efforts are ongoing to meet the cost of delivering the revamp, which was priced at £35.9 million when councillors agreed to press ahead with a full-scale revamp in August 2023.
Glasgow Life has admitted that that “timelines, options and cost estimates” for the attraction, which dates back to 1898, are continuing to “evolve”.
Glasgow’s first purpose-built museum, the People’s Palace has documented the social history of the city, from around 1750 to the present day.
However the condition of both the museum and the glasshouse have fallen into significant decline in recent decades, with regular repairs and closures ordered over health and safety concerns.
Hopes of a revival for the attractions soared three years ago when the city council announced plans for the £35.9m revamp to “restore, re-imagine and improve a much-loved cultural and historical asset”.
The vast majority of funding in place for the project has been committed by the council, with the local authority pledging £13.9m to date, while Glasgow Life has pledged £2m from its own resources.
Glasgow Life secured an initial £850,000 for the project from the National Lottery Heritage Fund at the start of 2024 and a pledge of a further £6.6m if final plans for the redevelopment are approved.
However Glasgow Life has admitted that its final stage application for National Lottery funding is not expected to be made until May of this year.
Glasgow Life was hoping to secure £4.5m from the Scottish Government to help meet a “fundraising target” of £12.5m.
However the government said talks were ongoing with Glasgow Life, which has raised £2.7m from other funding sources, “to understand the status of the project”.
The government also pointed out that its allocation for cultural capital projects is “primarily focused” on supporting cultural bodies it funds directly, including the National Galleries of Scotland and the National Museums Scotland.
The National Galleries last month secured a £56 million funding commitment, spread across four years, from the government to allow it to start work on a new cultural centre on Edinburgh’s waterfront which will become home to more than 130,000 works in its care.
The Scottish Budget also included an additional £2.5m million, spread across two years, for a long-delayed project to refurbish the King’s Theatre in Edinburgh. Ministers had previously committed £10.35m to the project.
Construction work on Edinburgh’s first new purpose-built concert hall for a century got underway in December after the government agreed to triple its investment in the project - which has been pursued for more than a decade by an American arts philanthropist - by committing an additional £20m to the 1000-capacity Dunard Centre, which will create a new home for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and a new venue for the Edinburgh International Festival.
However concerns over a lack of support for Glasgow’s cultural infrastructure have been raised with Holyrood’s culture committee.
Billy Garrett, Glasgow Life’s director of culture, tourism and events, said the city received “very little revenue funding” from the Scottish Government.
He added: “Our museums, for instance, receive not a single penny of revenue funding from the Scottish Government.
“Kelvingrove, Riverside and the Burrell - museums that attract just under four million visitors, the majority of whom are not from Glasgow, do not receive a single penny.
“They are not just nationally but internationally significant assets for this country, and our events and festivals are of a similar stature. We have been very fortunate so far in the support from the council, but we are reliant on that support.
“Our position is really vulnerable. We work with Creative Scotland and our colleagues in the city, and we are proud to host four of the five national performing companies in Glasgow. That is significant.
“We work across the board and closely with Creative Scotland and all the other national agencies, but we are coming to a significant point where our position is increasingly vulnerable.
“Although additional capital for the museums sector is, of course, to be welcomed, I point to the fact that that is effectively for museums in Edinburgh.
“To be honest, we were a bit disappointed that there was no funding for the People’s Palace capital programme in Glasgow, about which we have had conversations with government ministers.
"There are some really interesting items to include in a grown-up conversation about an asymmetric pattern of cultural funding and about recognition for the role that local authorities are playing in that cultural space. Certainly, we would love to be part of that conversation."
A spokesman for Glasgow Life insisted “good progress” was being made with the People's Palace and Winter Gardens project.
“The museum collection has now been safely decanted to our stores, enabling detailed surveys of these historic buildings to be completed.
“These surveys are giving us the technical information needed to restore and reimagine both the museum and glasshouse, and to support funding applications.
“At the same time, we have been consulting extensively with local community groups and have heard from thousands of people about what they hope to see in the renewed museum and the role it should play in the area for generations to come.”
Glasgow Life said the detailed surveys which had been carried out across the site were “informing the next phase of design development”.
The spokesman added: "This process has been essential to fully understand the condition and conservation requirements of these complex historic assets and to finalise the considerable scope of restoration and redevelopment works.
“When we closed the building in 2024, we indicated an ambition to reopen in 2027. As is common with large-scale capital projects involving major heritage structures, timelines, options and cost estimates continue to evolve as more detailed technical information becomes available and as funding discussions progress.
“As has been the case from the outset of the project, our focus remains on delivering a high-quality restoration which reflects the aspirations of local communities and secures the long-term future of this much-loved cultural space as an inclusive, accessible and world-class museum.”
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Government said: “The Scottish Government was approached by Glasgow Life for £4.5m funding towards the refurbishment.
“The request was flexible and could be split across multiple financial years with the majority of funding coming in 2027-28.
“The culture capital allocation is primarily focused on supporting the culture bodies, including the care and maintenance of their historic estates.
“Officials will continue to work with Glasgow Life to understand the status of the project.”
Mr Garrett told Holyrood's culture committee that the city's status as a "factory of culture and a factory of the arts" had become "really vulnerable" because of its reliance on local authority funding.
The government arts agency Creative Scotland has said it is "deeply worried" that the impact of additional funding for culture committed by the Scottish Government is at risk of being "eroded" to do local authority spending squeezes.
Glasgow City Council leader Susan Aitken said: "Across the UK, public spending isn’t keeping pace with rising demand for services – and that puts huge pressure on every local government budget.
“Clearly, we also have statutory obligations in relation to many of our functions, which can mean councils have to work harder and harder to find sustainable ways to support other very valuable services.
“In Glasgow, however, there are still really significant amounts of public resource going towards arts and culture - and we directly and indirectly support a wide range of both local and national cultural assets.
"We are also constantly looking at new ways to work and innovate with partners, for example the deal announced this week that will see Glasgow Life and the National Lottery work with Glasgow Film, the Scottish Ensemble and youth charity Articulate to revitalise McLellan Galleries, one of Glasgow’s oldest purpose-built creative spaces.
“Arguably, one of our problems has always been that Glasgow’s contribution to the cultural life of Scotland is undervalued."
Share