HAVERFORDWEST MUSEUM faces an uncertain future, The Herald can reveal.

At a meeting of Haverfordwest Town Council at which funding for the Museum was discussed, town councillors were told that they were not able to offer funding to it because of the provisions of The Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 and were told legal advice had been received to that effect.

Despite celebrating its 900th anniversary only a few years ago, Haverfordwest has very little in the way of heritage attractions.

The decision reached by the Town Council puts the only public-facing heritage attraction in the Town under threat.

The Herald has asked the Town Clerk, Juliet Raymond, why legal advice was sought and who tendered it.

At the time of writing we have not yet had a response.

The Herald understands that four current town councillors are trustees of the museum, including Mayor Alan Buckfield.

The news that payments to the Museum are claimed to be unlawful under the Act governing its funding has come as a shock to the volunteers who run it.

The Museum launches a major Great War exhibition on Monday (March 26), when it is due to open for the season.

The Herald contacted the Museums Association, the professional membership organisation for museum, gallery, and heritage professions.

Policy Officer Alistair Brown expressed his astonishment at the Town Council’s decision: “I am perplexed. Museums are funded by Town Councils and all levels of local government. The decision made could have far-reaching implications for the funding of local museums by local authorities.

“I am not a lawyer, but I have looked at the Act referred to by the Town Council and can see nothing in that which would prevent funding being provided.”

The funding decision is doubly peculiar as the Town Council has a forty year lease from the County Council on Castle House, which houses the Museum. The Museum itself is a charitable foundation set up by a Trust Deed in 1998. It occupies Castle House on a licence granted to it by the Town Council. It was the Town Council which acquired the lease to house the Town Museum and also decided to set up its governance via a Trust Deed.

If the payments made under the 1964 Act are either ultra vires or unlawful – that is, they are payments the Town Council is unable to make by law – the question arises as to the liability of those trustees who are or were town councillors when they were made.

A County Council representative attended Wednesday’s meeting and advised town councillors the interpretation of the law upon which they were relying was wrong.

The Herald asked for a comment from the County Council.

A spokesperson told us: ‘We have offered our legal opinion to the Town Council on whether they have the legal powers to fund the museum. However, it’s up to the Town Council to decide upon the matter’.