Client: Carmarthenshire County Council

Parc Howard Museum is an attractive grade 2 listed mansion and is one of Wales’s oldest public museums located within a park overlooking Llanelli town. The museum showcases the world’s largest public collection of Llanelli pottery, art in Wales from the 19th and 20th centuries, and artefacts relating to the social history of Llanelli. Carmarthenshire County Council commissioned Planning Solutions Consulting to determine the feasibility of developing and modernising visitor experience at Parc Howard Museum. This included: access improvements, visitor reception and retail area, toilets, function room, and improvements to functionality and visitor flow. The objective of the work is to increase visitor numbers, dwelltime and spend levels. Our work focussed on:

• Identifying the demand for and value to visitors of the provision of modernised facilities to complement the core museum function
• Defining the impact of the development against the 7 national well-being goals (Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act)
• Setting out project costs and income of the new visitor facilities and associated commercial activity, measured against deliverability and viability options
• Reviewing grant funding and other funding sources to support the capital development programme

It was also important to recognise the heritage and organisational culture of the museum and ensure that the recommendations were appropriate and in-keeping with this.

As part of the work we also carried out a feasibility study to assess the opportunity of introducing a café within the Museum. 

How can we help?
If you have any questions or would like to discuss our work please don’t hesitate to call Richard Linington on 07866 742628 or email richard@pslplan.co.uk