TOURIST attractions including Ford Green Hall and Etruria Industrial Museum again face a battle to survive under multi-million pound budget cuts.
Stoke-on-Trent City Council is consulting on plans to save £24 million in 2012/13 and the popular sites, handed a stay of execution after last year’s budget decision, are listed for closure.
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UNDER THREAT: Etruria Industrial Museum.
Gladstone Pottery Museum also faces having its opening hours cut by four hours on Sundays to save £20,000.
Officers have warned the move could count against the council in its bid for a Heritage Lottery Fund grant toward restoration of bottle ovens.
It may also trigger objections from external funding groups, including the Arts Council.
And the council is also planning to save £21,000 by making a manager in its culture and tourism team redundant.
The council estimates it can save £100,000-per-year by closing Etruria Industrial Museum and £58,000 by closing Ford Green Hall.
It is again looking to offload both attractions to a private company or social enterprise in an attempt to prevent them from closing.
Paul Reed, chairman of Smallthorne Residents’ Association, is working with a group of campaigners to save Ford Green Hall.
He said: “We’re still working as a group to put together a business plan and possibly setting up a trust to take it on and making it self-sufficient.
“Hopefully we can resolve these issues and the hall can have a new life.
“These buildings need preserving. If they close they will slowly but surely be vandalised and destroyed.
“They are part of our heritage and we have very little heritage left, many of the houses and factories have been knocked down.
“Ford Green Hall is Stoke-on-Trent’s oldest house, we need to keep it going and keep it open.”
The hall is a 17th Century timber farmhouse which is visited by about 11,000 people every year.
Etruria Industrial Museum, which attracts about 18,000 visitors every year, dates back to 1856.
A group of businessmen, professionals and other supporters have recruited an army of volunteers and set up a company to take over the running of the museum.
They are still holding meetings with the council.
Attraction supporter Danielle Fowler, of Porthill, whose 10-year-old son Jack volunteers at the centre, said: “He’s still very much involved and he would be very disheartened if it had to close. He really enjoys his engineering.
“It would be a real shame if it had to close as a lot of people go there.”
A budget report warns the closure of the museum would lead to “loss of the city’s heritage and facilities, principally the Princess steam engine which will decay without care and maintenance.”
The city council’s £24 million cuts package could see care facilities close, council tax rise by 3.5 per cent, and 358 jobs made redundant.
Cabinet member Olwen Hamer said: “Clearly there are statutory services that we have to provide and we have had to look at priorities.
“Tourism is still very important but we have to look at how we provide these services in the future.”