To consider the report and progress.

Steph James, Service Lead for Economic Growth, introduced Richard Poad, chairman of the Maidenhead Heritage Centre to the Panel. She explained that the Heritage Centre had recently been awarded a £6,000 grant to support core costs and allow it to continue growing its online presence while Covid continued to affect footfall.

Richard Poad explained the Heritage Centre was set up in 1993 and was a registered charity. Its premises in Park Street was the seventh building it had been homed in since 1993 and during its time there it had spent around £1.5million on running costs for the building. It employed a part-time curator and manager, and had a team of 25 volunteers. For the current financial year the Heritage Centre had been given the discretionary 20 per cent business relief, which they were extremely grateful for.

The Panel was told that Covid had badly affected the Heritage Centre and it had needed a government grant and the £6,000 relief grant from RBWM to cover its costs during the various lockdowns that had been implemented. This meant the museum had not required the use of furlough.

During lockdowns the Heritage Centre had started to run online lectures using Zoom. These had proved very popular and more than 40 lectures had been given to local groups. Richard Poad said they had reached a worldwide audience, with the lectures being viewed from New Zealand and California. The lectures had been recorded and were available for free to all day centres and care homes within the Royal Borough, and also those outside the Borough that were within a five-mile radius of the Heritage Centre. It was intended to resume lectures early in the new year.

Museums had been permitted to re-open from May 17^th and the Heritage Centre had welcomed a number of schools in for visits. However the small size of the current premises prevented larger groups from visiting. Richard Poad said the Heritage Centre was in the early stages of agreeing a move to the former SportsAble building at Braywick Park, which would enable larger artefacts to be displayed and bigger visitor groups to be accommodated. At the moment the Centre had to close to other visitors if a school group were attending, and moving to the proposed new premises would eliminate the need for this.

Responding to questions from Councillor Jones, Richard Poad said in a normal year the Heritage Centre would expect to welcome around 6,000 visitors. Before the outbreak of the Covid pandemic the Centre had started to engage with the tourism officers at the Royal Borough to boost visitor numbers. Richard Poad said the majority of visitors were ones who had made a special effort to travel to Maidenhead in order to attend, and there was a relatively small number of drop-in visitors. Additionally larger groups of visitors, such as aviation enthusiasts who wanted to use the Spitfire simulator, could not be accommodated at the current premises. As there was parking at Braywick Park, and it was easily reached from all major access routes into Maidenhead, it was felt the move would not be detrimental to the Heritage Centre.

Responding to a question from Councillor del Campo, Richard Poad asked if members could check with care homes in their ward if they had received an email from the Heritage Centre asking if they would be interested in being sent the recordings of the lectures. Members asked if this request could be sent out in the weekly Members’ newsletter.

Members wished Richard Poad and the Heritage Centre volunteers good luck for the proposed move to Braywick Park. It was agreed there was no need to further scrutinise the topic.