Tug o’war over Rings museum causes angst

We understand that Wellington is set to get a permanent Lord of the Rings/Hobbit museum which has the potential to boost tourism numbers and further build on the reputation of Weta and Peter Jackson’s team while embedding Wellington as the global Tolkien capital. Apparently, the museum is set to be based on the waterfront in Shed 1 which is currently home to Wellington Indoor Sports and the helicopters.

This secretive project will of course be great news for the City, even though it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to have another inward-looking use of the shed on the outer-T of Queens Wharf – which could provide an incredible outlook to the harbour.

However, the talk around the Council corridors is that there is a tug o’war brewing between the Mayor, Celia Wade-Brown, and her opponent, Councillor, John Morrison, over the timing and ownership of the project. Both are giving Gollum a run for his money as they naturally want their name on the press release and for the announcement to happen pre-election.

It is shaping as a tight race and the mayoral candidates obviously see this as a chance to spark their rather ordinary campaigns and boost their numbers before voting papers are delivered. But we’ve been told that unfortunately their perceived eagerness to cash in on the project is causing angst for everyone else connected to the project.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out – and who will get their precious. Ideally neither will get it and the announcement will come closer to the second Hobbit film, post-election.