The National Museum’s crumbling building is a metaphor for the culture sector in Wales

Gareth Davies MS

The National Museum in Cardiff has been issuing pleas for cash injections going back years to fix its deteriorating building. This came to a head last year when concerns were raised over the museum’s potential closure following Welsh Government cuts, until emergency talks resulted in the Welsh Government reluctantly agreeing to provide Amgueddfa Cymru with an additional £3.2 million to “protect and preserve” cultural institutions, including the National Museum in Cardiff.

The urgent repairs for the National Museum alone, however, have been costed at more than £25 million, and according to the Chair of Amgueddfa, the money offered by the Welsh Government “doesn’t go far enough.”

The £3.2 million uplift last year was a sticking plaster solution, and it was inevitable that sooner or later the neglected maintenance issues at the National Museum would create an even bigger headache for the Welsh Government.

Powerful

Wales’ rich and unique culture is more than just history – it’s the distilled traditions of thousands of years of her people. It’s our duty to preserve Wales’ ancient Celtic roots, cherished language, and powerful musical traditions, as a source of identity, pride, and resilience in an ever-changing world.

The Welsh Government play an important role as stewards of our culture, and they are failing in that role. Last week the National Museum in Cardiff announced it was closing unexpectedly due to a ‘mechanical fault,’ but thankfully was able to reopen within the week.

The disappointing closure of the museum again brought the issue to the fore and is a symbolic reminder of how the cultural sector in Wales has been neglected and under-funded. The valued and popular Theatre Clwyd in Mold, which attracts 200,000 visitors a year from north Wales and beyond, underwent essential work to replace the roof following investment by the previous UK Government.

The current UK Government at the other end of the M4, however, appears to have ditched the ‘Levelling-up’ agenda which will no doubt impact the culture and arts sector in north Wales.

In December, National Theatre Wales also announced its sudden and permanent closure following the loss of all its Arts Council Wales funding – a huge blow to the sector. The Arts Council Wales is an arm’s length body funded by the Welsh Government and is responsible for distributing arts funding to the sector.

Crisis

The Senedd’s Culture Committee has recently raised concerns over a crisis in the sector following cuts in the 2024-25 budget which have been compounded by inflation. The allocation for culture spending in the 2025-26 draft budget has increased, although the increase is nowhere near what is required to address the cultural funding crisis, particularly following the Chancellor’s rise in National Insurance which will wipe out much of the additional funding earmarked in the draft budget.

Culture Committee has also raised “significant concerns” over whether the Minister for Culture, Jack Sargeant, “fully appreciates” the pressure that arts, sports and heritage bodies are under. His perceived inability to comprehend the seriousness of the funding crisis in the sector should come as no surprise.

The Welsh Government has long thought of arts and culture spending as non-essential, and it’s now become an afterthought. For the Welsh Labour Government, there are other priorities that take precedence over preserving our cultural heritage – theatres and museums are seen as luxuries to indulge in during times of prosperity. Perhaps this attitude would be more forgivable if we had a health service that worked well and schools in which all children left literate and numerate?

If the Welsh Government maintains the attitude that arts and culture spending is non-essential, they will soon look like a philistine government, responsible for presiding over a nation that has become a cultural and artistic desert.

Hollowed-out

You cannot put a price on our national cultural heritage, and the Welsh Government shouldn’t spare any expense in ensuring the sector is sufficiently resourced. Once our cultural sector has been hollowed-out, it will be nigh on impossible to rebuild it.

The challenges faced by the sector, however, are multifaceted. Politicians, particularly those on the left, frequently call for greater levels of funding without questioning why it’s needed, or whether the causes of the need can be remedied another way.

Decreasing footfall post-Covid and rising security concerns due to the increased threat posed by environmental protesters have also contributed to mounting funding requirements, alongside deteriorating buildings.

Amgueddfa Cymru sites in Cardiff suffered a more than 30% drop in footfall from pre-Covid levels – a dismal trend seen across the UK which shows museums and galleries failing to bounce back from the pandemic.

Another contemporary threat to museums nationwide is from environmental protesters who have developed a penchant for vandalising our national collections.

At present, it feels like every month there’s another adolescent, gratuitous act of criminal vandalism by Just Stop Oil or Extinction Rebellion, which is why I was particularly surprised to see the National Museum display an Extinction Rebellion art exhibit. I can only assume it’s akin to attempts to befriend the school bully in the hopes they won’t start terrorising you.

The National Museum Directors’ Council, which represents the leaders of the UK’s national collections and major regional museums, issued a joint letter in October calling for an end to protests targeting notable artworks.

They argue the targeting has caused enormous stress for colleagues and visitors who no longer feel safe. The additional security measures implemented at museums, such as protective plastic barriers and screening visitors for liquids, creates additional challenges for museums who have to ensure the safety of their collections – adding to their financial burden.

Protesters

Cash-strapped museums are now having to find money to maintain crumbling buildings and implement additional security measures to mitigate the risk to collections posed by environmental protesters.

I try to stay sanguine in the face of fatalist hyperbole about funding crises, but if Wales continues down this path, we won’t need museums to preserve our cultural heritage—because there won’t be much left to preserve. The collapsing ceiling of the National Museum in Cardiff is more than just a structural issue. It’s a depressing symbol of a cultural sector being left to perish.

While funding is slashed, visitor numbers remain stubbornly low, and museums are forced to divert funds to guard against activists who seem to think that defacing art will save the planet.

If the Welsh Government treats culture as an afterthought for much longer, Wales risks becoming a nation where theatres sit empty, museums decay, and our cultural heritage is little more than a memory. And when that happens, nothing will be able to revive what has been lost.

Gareth Davies is the Welsh Conservative Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Tourism, Sport & North Wales.