An Aberdeen museum which tells the 200-year history of “the finest regiment in the world” is to lose its Ministry of Defence funding.
The Gordon Highlanders Museum, on the city’s Viewfield Road, will lose around £20,000 worth of funding each year, when the cuts come into force in April.
Yesterday, the museum’s chief executive Bryan Snelling moved to assure the public that the future of the popular attraction was not in jeopardy.
He said: “The support we have had from the MoD in recent years has been limited, amounting to around £20k per annum.
“We have been aware that our funding would not be continued beyond April 2017 for a number of years now and have been planning for this outcome.
“Whilst it would have been nice to have continued to receive the funding from the MoD, the museum is in a good position at this time because of our planning and its future is in no danger whatsoever due to the withdrawal of the MoD funding.”
The museum, which has won numerous awards and is one of only two five-star visitor attractions in Aberdeen, tells the dramatic military history of the regiment once hailed by a young Winston Churchill as the “finest” in the world.
It is one of a dozen Army regimental museums due to lose its funding by April as part of an MoD drive to reduce the number it supports from 67 to 36 in the next ten years.
Many are now joining together to share premises in order to preserve their collecitons.
The 13th/18th Royal Hussars and the Light Dragoons Museum, which was based in Barnsley, has already closed ahead of the cuts.
Leading military figures have warned the move could leave parts of the UK could be cut off from their historical forces connections.
The closures are part of a long-agreed government plan, and the MoD has said it will fund only one museum for each of the current British Army regiments.
It said in a statement: “We recognise the important contribution made by these museums in preserving military heritage and acting as the bridge between communities and the Army.
“This is why, irrespective of funding, they will continue to receive support and have close ties with their associated regiment.”
