Property Trust in final stage to secure Explosion! Museum
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Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust, the organisation which owns Portsmouth Historic Dockyard on lease from the MOD and runs three of the site attractions, is conducting final negotiations with Gosport Borough Council on the acquisition of Priddy’s Hard, the former Royal Navy ordnance depot, and the Explosion! Museum of Naval Firepower.
The Property Trust, which was offered the site by the MOD in 1988 before it was sold to Gosport Borough Council, has been a long-term advocate of uniting historic sites on the Portsmouth and Gosport sides of the harbour so that their history can be celebrated as a single story.
It proposes to introduce a summer waterbus service linking Portsmouth Historic Dockyard to Priddy’s Hard, the Royal Navy Submarine Museum and Gunwharf Quays. Tickets to the Gosport attractions will be sold in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard and at Gunwharf Quays.
Peter Goodship, Property Trust Chief Executive, said: ‘We hope that by saving Explosion! from closure we can realise our ambition of uniting the two sides of the harbour as originally intended by the Renaissance of Portsmouth Harbour scheme.
‘Portsmouth Harbour is one of the finest historic sites in the world and deserves to benefit Portsmouth, Gosport and Fareham in the same way as Cardiff Bay benefits the Cardiff community and Sydney Harbour benefits Sydney. We need to forget artificial local boundaries and create Portsmouth Harbour as the visitor destination, celebrating its rich cultural and social history.’
The physical evidence of the Royal Navy’s transition from the age of sail, gunpowder and solid shot to the Dreadnought era of the early 1900s is well preserved at Priddy’s Hard in a range of structures. Already new homes and transport infrastructure are bringing life back to this fascinating complex.
The Trust intends to make Priddy’s Hard a destination in its own right, building on the previous development proposals.
Peter Goodship added: ‘We have several ideas, all of which are designed to capitalise on the special character of the site and attract visitors for a variety of different purposes. It is a challenging site from an economic perspective: much of its value has already been extracted by the housing scheme undertaken by Crest Nicholson but this has not been reinvested in the rest of the site. This leaves little room for manoeuvre but we shall be relying on the goodwill of the Borough and other agencies to help us make the successful transformation which the site richly deserves.
‘We are looking forward to working closely with Gosport to achieve the right result.’
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