Federation street spring clean to continue over summer

Published on 30 September 2020

The ‘spring clean’ of the Federation Street at the Burnie Regional Museum will continue into 2021, with the Museum unlikely to reopen to the public until at least April 2021. 

Burnie City Council Mayor Steve Kons said that COVID related issues had allowed the Council to concentrate its efforts on the cleaning and cataloguing of the shops in the Streetscape, in some cases for the first time since the Museum opened 50 years ago. 

“The drop in visitor numbers, and especially cruise ship visitors over this summer season; together with the need to re-deploy staff from other areas in Council impacted by COVID, provided a golden opportunity to undertake this work.” 

“Staff are doing a great job in cleaning and cataloguing the Collection, but with the many hundreds of items in the Federation Street shops, this is a significant body of work”, Mayor Kons said. 

“The nature of the works means that the Streetscape and early Burnie Exhibition cannot be open to the public, and our temporary exhibition space is being used to clean individual items.” 

“As a result, the Museum will remain closed for the time being, with the opening date to be reviewed in March 2021, when it is clearer how COVID is impacting on Museum and Council operations.” 

"We are also working on Covid safe systems that will allow our volunteers to resume their valuable work cataloguing historic photos and assisting with research.” 

Keep an eye on the Museum’s Facebook page for updates on the cleaning and interesting items that are held in the collection. 

Members of the public are still able to make enquiries to the Museum either by calling 6430 5746 or visiting the website.

Photo: The Advocate Newspaper