The recent report re Castletown’s Nautical Museum and the return of the Peggy, in the Manx Independent, seemed to imply that there was no completion date for the Nautical Museum and Peggy Project.

In fact Page 15 of the MNH Nautical Museum and Peggy Tender which has been awarded to Dannat Johnson Architects (DJA) and their project’s managers Fraser Randall, whose fees will account for a very substantial portion of the projects £5 million cost, states very clearly that -

‘The date of the handover of the completed project, including installation of museum objects and collection items, commissioning/testing etc is 01/09/2025.’

Hopefully the appointment of these two expensive London companies will now halt any further delays or wheel spin of MNH’s chairman and trustees which we suffered during the ridiculously long eight years whilst deprived of our world famous Peggy during which the cost of returning her will probably have doubled.

Now that we have the September 1, 2025, date for the completion of a top class Nautical Museum incorporating the 230-year-old Peggy together with other aspects of Castletown’s very significant nautical heritage the Commissioners and the public, whose taxes MNH is expecting to spend on the project, should all be regularly informed on the progress of the project instead of the Trustees continuing to veil what seems to have been their earlier lack of drive, progress and silence which they eventually embellished in their unnecessarily long, smart, padded out 2020 report to Tynwald.

Richard H. Bedford

Scarlett Road

Castletown

This letter was first published in the Isle of Man Examiner of January 31.

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