Cllr Martin Hill, Leader of Lincolnshire County Council, has responded to the recent City of Lincoln Council press release talking about Lincolnshire's arts and artefacts move to Nottingham.
City of Lincoln news story: City of Lincoln council moves to preserve the rich history and heritage of the city.
Cllr Martin Hill, leader of lincolnshire county council, commented:
"This shows utter contempt for Lincolnshire residents and the wishes of James Usher, whilst at the same time brings unnecessary costs to Lincoln taxpayers at a time when the City Council is claiming financial difficulties.
"Even if they have arranged a favourable rate for storage with Nottingham City Council – what will be the cost of moving and installing almost 30,000 artefacts?
"Just to set the record straight, whilst there have been early conversations - we have never had negotiations about the storage of Lincolnshire artefacts, so this is a complete surprise to us. We even spoke to them this morning – and nothing was mentioned!
"As you can see in my letter, we had offered to look after the Usher collection and Gallery free of charge and all we were asking for is some flexibility on the use of part of the Usher building which is currently underused in order to bring much needed modernisation to the gallery.
"To send Lincolnshire's artworks and artefacts out of the county is completely outrageous and to me it seems that City of Lincoln's leadership are more interested in working with Labour run Nottingham City Council, which also has severe financial problems, rather than looking after the residents which it purports to represent.
"I'm also hugely offended by the dismissive reference to our heritage professionals who have been taking great care of the artefacts since 1974.
"It is extremely disappointing that the City of Lincoln Council would rather invest in a local authority in another county by giving it all of our Lincolnshire treasures to display and enjoy, whilst denying our residents the opportunity and demonstrating a complete lack of support for culture and heritage in its own county. "