The best and worst of... Small market town... Big issues...
(And no that is not the real council's crest, this one even has 3 roast chickens on it)
The best and worst of... Small market town... Big issues...
(And no that is not the real council's crest, this one even has 3 roast chickens on it)
29th MARCH 2025
The Museum Without Walls is something you can download for your phone in Ross-on-Wye. It allows you go around the town to locations where buildings and stuff used to exist, to hold up and point your phone to see a CGI version of them.
The computer graphics are pretty basic by standards nowadays. Better than Minecraft of course but think more Playstation 2 than Unreal Engine - if none of that made much sense, don’t worry, here’s some very modern, amazing 3D graphics that will make you go ‘oooooo’, as against those basic blocky 3D ones that just make you go ‘oh’.
The Museum Without Walls was a big project, and after 5 years they say it’s complete. It has 12 locations around the town or ‘virtual exhibits’ you can see, like a long-gone fountain up at the Prospect or where the Roxy cinema was in Broad Street.
It's a nice thing, particularly for those involved in making it, but how much did it cost for how much it gets used? Let's take a look.
It’s been funded with public money, YOUR money as taxpayers, and that works something like this:
1) You ask for money.
2) You explain the reasoning for wanting it, your intended aims and outcomes.
3) Afterwards, you can look back and measure how successful it’s been.
Well, we’ll come back to point 1, about the money, in a moment, let’s skip along to point 2 first, and feel free to hold hands if you like while you skip.
The key aim, which was seen in document seeking funding, was to have a positive effect on tourism.
Right, let’s go straight back to that fountain and cinema for a moment. Quite interesting for locals, sure, but if you were on a mini-break visiting a town 100 miles away for the first time, would you be interested in a fountain or a cinema that isn’t there anymore? Let’s face it a lot of people aren’t much more than casually interested in their own town about this stuff, and that's where there is a much higher chance of a bit of intrigue.
Is this phone app thingy going to draw you into visiting Ross? Tourism is the focus remember. Would you even know about the Museum Without Walls before coming? Would you know about it when you get here? You’re going to have to (a) hear about it, (b) find out where to download it, (c) bother to download and install it, (d) go use it at a location, and (e - [optional]) walk about trying to find all the locations spread out all over the town, that's IF you found ‘d’ impressive.
The thing is, by its very nature it’s invisible, the only way to experience it is to, ummm, experience it. There are hoops to jump through because you first have to get it installed and working, and that in product usage and marketing terms, is what’s called ‘friction’.
So come on, would you stumble across a sign in a town (there are little signs dotted around) and upon reading that sign be so interested you’d download an app there and then? Hmmm. Museum Without Walls but hardly a Museum Without Flaws.
Let’s now look at point 3 - how you can measure how successful it’s been.
Well, a quick email to the people at Museum Without Walls under Freedom of Information and the number of downloads came back in a reply.
The totaliser for the number of downloads up to January 1st 2025?
Now imagine tension building music for just a touch longer than isn’t annoying, and spinning animated numbers coming to a stop.
“Taaadaaa” says Claudia Winkleman… it’s….
2,062 downloads (1550 on iOS and 512 on Android).
5-Year project, promoted, promotional website, social media, 2,062 downloads.
Are these downloaders even tourists though, because funding is sought for tourism?
One thing is for sure, lots of families and extended families of all those involved in any way with the project will have downloaded it. That will add up to a lot of people. Some schools were involved too, in doing a promotional video (which would have been lovely for the kids to do!), no doubt that created more downloads. Then you have locals that have heard about it and thought they’d download it and take a look.
All these together will make up a very significant portion of the downloads, but none of them are tourists like what Derek and Mavis are from Pontefract that you just saw popping into Parsons. Come on grammar police, you're on the wrong website ;)
What about app usage?
How many people download the app but never use it?
How many people download it but then can’t get it to work (this is something that’s been said by quite a lot of people in Ross, maybe because their handsets don’t support it, don’t know).
Now for the truly important context. Money.
If this whole project cost a hundred quid, who cares? Okay okay, it will have cost a lot more than that, but it illustrates a basic principle. If it represents good value for money, then that's great! Right?
So, knowing how much money is the last piece of the jigsaw to understand if the spending has been wise, and the use of public money justified.
Time for another email... quick keyboard rattle, done...
An email was sent off asking under FOI how much public money had been spent on the Museum Without Walls - taxpayers money over the 5-year project.
In the email a quick list of funding sources were listed, which were taken from all the logos they'd put at the bottom of their very own website:
- Heritage Lottery Fund
- Arts Council England
- Herefordshire A Great Place
- Herefordshire Rural Media
- Funded by UK Government
- Levelling Up
- Herefordshire Council
Oh, and by the way it has been established that money has been paid from both Ross-on-Wye Town Council and Herefordshire Town Council.
The response to how much funding?
Drum roll…. tension rising…. oh just bloody get on with it…
Well they said: “as an independent voluntary organisation we are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act and we don’t see the point in your request”.
Now, you can go back and read that in a nerdy voice if you like. Could someone even be thinking this was a mic-drop moment? You decide…
A quick reply was sent to see if they would reveal the funding and asking if not, could they provide contact details of people that could.
Waiting patiently ….but there was no response.
A quick email chasing up ….guess what, no response.
Stonewalled by the Museum Without Walls.
Hmmmm.
Why the secrecy?
Why won’t the people at the Museum Without Walls let people know the total amount of public money they’ve spent on the project?
If the total amount of money spent was reasonable, and represented good value for money, you'd think they might be ever so keen to let people know? Is it embarrassingly high?
A quick bit of maths ‘fun’ on the approximate 2000 downloads:
£2,000 divided by 2000 = £1 per download so far
£5,000 divided by 2000 = £2.50 per download so far
£10,000 divided by 2000 = £5 per download so far
£20,000 divided by 2000 = £10 per download so far
£30,000 divided by 2000 = £15 per download so far
£40,000 divided by 2000 = £20 per download so far
£50,000 divided by 2000 = £25 per download so far
…and so on….
What if only half those downloads are actually tourists?
How much did this thing cost?
Refusing to answer based on a technicality of whether they 'have to' does seem to have all the hallmarks of playing silly sausages.
There’s absolutely nothing them from being transparent. Why won’t they just say?
Why won’t Museum Without Walls let the people of Ross-on-Wye know how much public money has been spent on this project?
So it seems there’s a problem. They have a problem with transparency!
Now normally if you have a problem, if no one else can help and if you can find them, maybe you can hire, The A-Team - but in this case a cabbage gun fashioned by B.A. Baracus in some redneck’s shed out of an old air compressor and a length of guttering isn’t going to help unfortunately (roll the intro here).
Would you like to know how much public money has been spent?
If you would like to try asking yourself, you can reach out to the Museum Without Walls team at CreateRoss info@createross.co.uk, the Chair at the top is Ed O’Driscoll, who is also a Ross-on-Wye Town Councillor.
Shout how you get on!