NATIONAL Museums Liverpool wants to play a role in helping protect the city’s heritage, its chairman Phil Redmond said last night.

Redmond defended the architecture of NML’s new £70m Museum of Liverpool, but said it would be for future generations to decide how well it fits alongside the Three Graces.

“I want to play a role in making the museums supportive of protecting the cultural heritage in the city.

“We have a historical architectural heritage that goes back to a very rich 19th century city, which we have to balance with the realities of a 21st- century city still going through its renaissance.” He officially took over as chairman of NML in August, but had been splitting his time with the Culture Company where he was creative director.

Last night, in an exclusive interview with the Daily Post, he outlined how he sees his role as chairman.

“My first job as chairman is to promote what we have here.” He said he wanted to dispel confusion that NML is just the World Museum, when it is, in fact, a group of museums.

“I think that some of the nonsense I have read in the press recently is about that confusion.

“When people say the collections are not broad enough, they tend to be focusing on one particular institution, the World Museum. We have some of the best collections in the world.”

He said at any one time only 10% of items owned by NML were on display.

“Museums are about truth, and the fact is, if you put some collections out, you have to take others out of a museum – it’s just a simple case of logistics really. But we can’t do more than spend £70m building an entirely new museum.”

He said some of the recent criticism of that the International Slavery Museum did not properly highlight Liverpool’s contribution to the abolition movement “bordered on silly”.

“This is not a small provincial museum, it is a global museum. It’s about slavery on a global scale which focuses on the fact that this is still going on in the world.”

He denied that the museums had dumbed down.

“Museums provide an educational service, they should not be the preserve of private collectors.

“Society has changed, these are public assets and we have to make them as accessible as we can.”

“You can still find a contemplative corner in the Walker Gallery if you want.”

He also sees his role as helping the professionals “get the message out”.

“I have always been known to listen to people, and I want us to be a listening organisation too.

“We will never get everything right, but we can listen and explain our reasoning.”

He praised the work of director Dr David Fleming as “fantastic”.

“I really support his social inclusion agenda. We want our museums to be lively places that people will celebrate.”

davidbartlett