Winchester Heritage Centre - Trust Annual Report 1990
It is a pleasure to report that at last an agreement has been reached with Winchester City Council which will ensure security of tenure of the Heritage Centre for the next few years. The City intends to undertake certain repairs and on completion of these will grant a licence to the Trust to occupy the building for three years at an annual rental of £3,000. The Trust already incurs a loss in running the Heritage Centre, largely as a public service, and such a rent would have imposed a severe burden on us. However, the City generously has awarded the Trust a grant of £3,000 for each of the three years of the agreement. This is good news indeed. The repairs will give the Heritage Centre a much needed face-lift and the fact that we now have some security of tenure is of great encouragement to the Management of the Centre and to the volunteers upon whom its success depends. Various ideas are being explored for utilisation of the Centre and we can look forward to the future with confidence.
We were saddened by the sudden death of Neville Oldfield who became Deputy Manager of the Centre last year. His place is now vacant and urgently awaiting a volunteer. This year has been a particularly difficult one in that work on the Brooks Shopping Centre, apart from noise, at times made it almost impossible to enter the Heritage Centre, let alone find it. This together with the hot weather discouraged visitors. Nevertheless, although attendances were down compared with previous years, a steady level was maintained and there were a number of successful group and school visits.
We look for better things in 1991.