Selling art 'not an option', says council

The collection includes the Bottle of Notes, which sits outside the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art

A cash-strapped council has insisted the sale of its artworks is not a fundraising option and would risk legal challenge.

Calls were made last year for Middlesbrough Council to consider selling off artefacts from its £32.5m collection, as the council battled to plug a funding blackhole and avoid a section 114 notice.

The local authority subsequently carried out research and concluded it was not an option.

The director of regeneration, Richard Horniman, said such a move would leave the council open to legal challenge and could affect future grant funding for the town.

Middlesbrough Council is now one of few local authorities to receive exceptional financial support from the government, to help it avoid effective bankruptcy.

Its collection includes more than 1,000 fine art pieces, 250 ceramics and a natural science collection of approximately 250,000 specimens.

Other assets include the Bottle of Notes, the Brian Clough statue, and a William Kelly book collection.

Middlesbrough Council's collection also includes various medals and memorabilia at the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum

In an email to councillors this week, Mr Horniman said: “Following some joint work between ourselves and Mima it is clear that the ownership of the artworks is legally open to interpretation and therefore a challenge.

"For example, the LS Lowry painting was donated by the artist to the council for the people of Middlesbrough."

The email continued: “The council technically own [the Lowry painting], but wouldn’t be able to try and sell it without the threat of significant legal challenge.

"Recent examples have shown it is very easy to prevent such sales, and cause huge reputational damage in the process.”

LS Lowry's painting The Old Town Hall and St Hilda's Church (1959) is housed in Mima

A spokeswoman for the Arts Council said they understood the financial difficulties faced by local authorities, but selling off art should not be used to cover short-term gaps in funding.

Such a move would “erode the long-held and hard-won trust that the public have in museums and will cause irreversible damage to the UK’s cultural inheritance”, she said.