Kent fire museum could be closed

A decision will be made about whether to close the Museum

Kent Fire and Rescue Service (KFRS) is considering closing its museum because of a lack of space at its headquarters.

KFRS said the attraction was also suffering from poor attendance and an unsuitable building.

It has proposed creating an "E-museum" with information about artefacts online while the objects themselves would be moved to other existing museums.

Fire service historian Roger Mardon said: "It is vital it is kept together. This is Kent in all its guises."

Mr Mardon said: "I think many fire services and other public authorities have lost so much of the country's heritage in the name of efficiency and saving costs that the public should be looking to public authorities to be preserving what's left."

Inside Kent Fire and Rescue Service Museum

Fire service historians want to keep the entire collection together

In a statement KFRS said: "Sadly our current museum, based in one of the prefab huts at our headquarters in Tovil cannot achieve this due to the limitations of the building, its location and lack of parking.

"We face the problem that we have teams of staff who need to be located at our HQ in order to run the service and we simply do not have room to house them.

"This means we have to look at all options and freeing up space taken up by the museum has to be considered."

The museum currently opens one day a week and has artefacts including video footage of blazes, archive photographs, a steam fire engine and a hollowed out tree trunk, which was originally used as a water main underground.

The final decision will be made on 28 January by the county's fire authority.