Bromley Council wants to replace its old museum and art store in Priory Gardens with a new, purpose-built facility that will house its historic records and documents and “ensure that the borough’s heritage is preserved for future generations”.
When the council revealed its plans in the summer, a petition was launched to stop the project which has since gained over 2,600 signatures.
The current store is located in a depot within the Grade II listed Arts & Crafts and Italianate style public green space that is located to the north east of Orpington High Street. Bromley considers the current store, which is over 40 years old, to be outdated and not up to modern archival standards.
The depot, which is not publicly accessible, has facilitated park upkeep in the past and is now used primarily for storage.
The replacement archive has been designed to be less than the height of the depot’s existing structures and set further back from the historic gardens as to be “less imposing” on the park.
The archive would not be open to the public on a day-to-day basis, but instead by appointment. It would be open to members of the public on special events such as Open House Festival and Heritage Open Days.
The plans have been criticised by many as they feel the public gardens are not the right place for an archive building. As part of the Protect Priory Gardens group, Caroline Jeffrey has been campaigning to stop the project from going ahead.
She said: “Priory Gardens is one of Orpington’s most important historic and ecological landscapes.
“We are asking for a fair, transparent and evidence-based decision. A development of this scale in a registered historic park must meet the highest planning standards — and this application simply does not.”
As of December 16, the planning application had gained 83 objections. Some have called the new facility “an absolute eyesore” or “a soulless and lifeless metal box”, while one objector described it as “a disgusting example of cultural vandalism”.
Many objectors suggest the proposal seemingly goes against policy 55 of Bromley’s Local Plan, which states that any replacement buildings located in Urban Open Space must not “exceed the site coverage of the existing development on the site”.
The new facility would be larger in terms of footprint than the existing buildings in the Priory Gardens depot.
Ms Jeffrey said: “Policy 55 is clear: you replace like-for-like. You cannot expand a protected site by re-labelling open ground as ‘building coverage’. We simply want the council to follow its own rules.”
Policy 55 is addressed in the new facility’s planning documents, which state that the proposed development must meet at least one of Policy 55’s three requirements, but it does not need to meet all three to comply.
As the new facility would be a continuation of use in terms of offering another archival facility in the same spot, it complies with the policy’s first requirement and thus the council deems it an appropriate development within Urban Open Space.
The policy also states that any community benefit from a proposed development will be weighed against the potential loss of open space.
The council believes the new archive will deliver significant public benefits, such as long-term savings for taxpayers on storage costs and improved access to the archives for those who want to access its materials.
Objectors also feel there are plenty of other locations in Bromley that would be a more suitable location for the new archive.
One location was Bromley Civic Centre itself, the home of the council, as was suggested by council officers to the Executive in 2023.
In response to this, a council spokesperson said: “It was already discovered during earlier considerations that moving the borough’s archive and historic collection to the wider Bromley Civic Centre site would not be feasible, due to the significant costs of making the building suitable for protecting the borough’s heritage, especially given the specific set standards from the council’s legal duty to maintain the archive.
“Further consideration was given to a number of potential sites for housing the archive, with the current proposal being the only viable option for council taxpayers, which involves replacing the existing museum store at the underused depot next to Priory Gardens with a purpose-built store that can house the wider collection. Following earlier resident engagement, the council has submitted a planning application for this site, with residents able to comment in the usual way.”
Public consultation for the planning application is currently under way, with Friday, December 19 being the final day Bromley residents can submit their representations.
The reference for the application is 25/05351/FPA and it can be viewed on Bromley Council’s planning portal.
