Aotea Utanganui - South Taranaki museum gets Lottery funding

Aotea Utanganui - the South Taranaki museum - will benefit from a grant from the Lottery environment and heritage committee. Photo / Richard Wotton

Objects that are stored in uninsulated rooms with dirt floors in South Taranaki's Patea museum will benefit from an upgrade to the property.

Aotea Utanganui - the South Taranaki District Museum has been granted $618,756 by the Lottery environment and heritage committee. It will be put toward building a new exhibition space and more collection storage.

The work will be the second stage in a planned three-stage redevelopment.

Collection and storage space has reached capacity, the committee said. Many objects are stored in the old part of the museum, which is not structurally sound, has no insulation and has a dirt floor in parts.

The museum's collection includes farm and industrial remnants and the Waitore taonga, wooden objects that date back to the 1600s and were excavated from a swampy stream near Patea. The carvings and tools show clear Polynesian patterning and have significance to Taranaki iwi.

The proposed new building will be at 100 per cent of new building standard and have a fire protection system.

"The committee saw the project as a good fit with its purpose to conserve, protect and/or promote collections and stories that are important to New Zealand's cultural heritage and identity," its statement said.

The museum opened in April 2011. It is a partnership between South Taranaki District Council and the South Taranaki District Museum Trust. To open it, the trust raised $1 million for its buildings and $350,000 for its exhibitions.

When it opened, trust secretary Marie McKay said there were years and years of work on its collection to come.