Museum chief says keeping landmark open each week is a “mini miracle” as political row erupts over years of deferred maintenance
NATIONAL MUSEUM CARDIFF could be forced to close for up to five years as Wales faces the consequences of a maintenance crisis which has been documented for years but remains unresolved.
Jane Richardson, chief executive of Amgueddfa Cymru, said keeping the museum open from one week to the next was a “mini miracle” because of the deteriorating condition of the building.
A prolonged closure is now considered a realistic option, with major work needed to the museum’s roof and ageing electrical, mechanical and plumbing systems.
The warning comes as the landmark building prepares to mark its centenary in 2027 and raises serious questions over why a known maintenance problem was allowed to develop into a threat to one of Wales’s most important cultural institutions.
No final decision has been taken, but previous proposals have suggested the building could close for four or five years while extensive renovation work is carried out.
Attempting to complete the work while keeping the museum open could considerably increase both the cost and length of the project.
Warnings issued years ago
The scale of the problem has been known for several years.
Amgueddfa Cymru previously estimated that an additional £30m would be required to deal specifically with maintenance problems at National Museum Cardiff.
That followed the expenditure of approximately £3m on two major roof projects between 2020 and 2023.
Despite that work, serious concerns remained over further water ingress and the condition of the building’s mechanical, electrical and plumbing infrastructure.
The crisis extends across the whole Amgueddfa Cymru estate.
Audit Wales reported that its maintenance backlog had reached approximately £70m by December 2024.
Although annual capital funding increased from £1.5m in 2019-20 to £5.4m in 2023-24, auditors concluded that it had not been enough to deal with the accumulated repairs.
Amgueddfa Cymru’s trustees were later told that a previous building strategy had identified a £68m backlog.
Officials said an intended £8m programme of works had not been possible because the required Welsh Government capital funding was not provided, meaning projects had to be prioritised and some remedial work delayed.
Trustees were also warned that another unexpected closure was possible because of the age and condition of the infrastructure.
National Museum Cardiff was forced to close temporarily in February 2025 following a mechanical failure.
Millions spent on urgent work
Successive funding announcements have paid for urgent repairs, but no fully funded long-term solution has yet been confirmed.
The Welsh Government provided £1.3m for repairs at National Museum Cardiff in 2024.
Almost £3.5m more was subsequently announced for priority work, including repairs to the building, on top of Amgueddfa Cymru’s wider annual capital allocation.
That brought recently announced targeted funding for the Cardiff site to approximately £4.8m, substantially below the £30m additional requirement previously identified.
Ministers must now decide whether to continue funding emergency repairs or commit to a comprehensive redevelopment capable of protecting the building and its collections for decades.
Davies blames ‘decolonisation’ projects
Andrew RT Davies, Conservative Senedd Member for the Vale of Glamorgan and Bridgend, described the potential closure as “unacceptable”.
He blamed Amgueddfa Cymru and Plaid Cymru for supporting projects intended to “decolonise” museum collections while the building required repairs.
Mr Davies said: “While Plaid Cymru separatists insisted millions should be wasted on decolonising museums, building maintenance was ignored.
“This is a scandal of Plaid and Amgueddfa Cymru’s own making.
“If the museum ends up having to close, it will be a disgrace.”
However, the anti-racism funding at the centre of the wider political debate was provided through separate, targeted grant programmes covering museums, libraries, archives, arts and sporting organisations across Wales.
A Welsh Government evaluation found that £1.8m was allocated over three financial years to six projects involving national organisations.
Most of the money was revenue funding for staffing, training, education, workshops and community engagement, with £180,600 classed as capital expenditure.
A further £2.8m went to 21 local culture, heritage and sport projects, of which less than £79,000 was capital funding.
Mr Davies’s statement did not identify a specific Amgueddfa Cymru project which should have been cancelled, how much was spent by the museum itself, or whether the restricted grant funding could legally have been transferred into major building repairs.
The available figures also show that the anti-racism programme covered numerous organisations and projects across Wales, while the repair backlog across Amgueddfa Cymru’s estate alone stood at approximately £70m.
Questions for the Welsh Government
A prolonged closure would have major consequences for the museum’s employees, exhibitions and education programmes.
It would also raise questions over where items from Wales’s national collections would be stored or displayed while the work was carried out.
National Museum Cardiff houses major art, archaeology, geology and natural history collections and is one of the capital’s best-known free attractions.
The political argument over museum interpretation risks obscuring the larger issue.
The maintenance crisis was identified years ago, ministers and museum officials knew that tens of millions of pounds of work was required, and the backlog continued to grow.
The central questions are now how long the museum may have to close, what a full redevelopment will cost and why the situation was allowed to reach the point where keeping the doors open is described as a weekly miracle.
