Newcastle deserves a museum, and it had one at Newcastle West until the council decided to move it to Honeysuckle. The question I put to you is, how much does Newcastle deserve a museum? $23.5million?

That was the last count, up from the $6million or $7million mentioned eight years ago by the museum director, Gavin Fry, as the estimated cost of relocating to Honeysuckle. The museum is still relocating to the same buildings at Honeysuckle - yes, $23.5million when the buildings are already there! - and it has much the same stuff to move, so maybe the trimmings are more flash.

As I suggest in my column in The Herald today, it may be that the juggernaut driving a new museum was such that the decision was as good as made before costs became an issue, and if that was the case costs were never an issue. They certainly don't appear to be an issue now. Who could forget Newcastle City Council's almost hysterical warnings this decade that it was in such dire financial straits that it could not maintain its own buildings!

Sure, some of the money is to be provided by sponsors, but as it stands now Newcastle council is to produce $17million of it. And that for a museum that will operate at a loss of $2million a year. What odds a blow-out in the $23.5million relocation cost and the $2million running costs?

I like museums, although I must say I find less to interest me in the modern arty style employed by the recently closed museum at Newcastle West. We deserve a museum. How much do we deserve it?