Partnerships are the way forward

DEAR Editor, Graham Stroud ( Post, letters January 19) makes an important point about the role of culture in the city’s development. We know, for example, the transformation that great museums and galleries bring, whether established institutions like the superb Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, or new developments elsewhere such as the Turner Contemporary in Margate.

Tristam Hunt’s resignation as Stoke-onTrent Central MP, to be director of the Victoria & Albert Museum, inspires hope that we could now see substantial new development projects, outside London, from a reinvigorated V&A.

Mr Hunt clearly understands the power of culture, and the need for regeneration in Stoke, Birmingham and nationwide. I suspect he will be looking for fresh ways for his museum to make a difference.

So why not a V&A (Midlands) based in Birmingham, with close partnerships with Midlands museums such as the Potteries Museum in Stoke?

The reputational boost could be enormous, and we know that storerooms in London, and for that matter Birmingham, are full of world-class treasures, surplus to displays. Furthermore, lottery and private funding is often available for convincing projects.

Midlands museums’ co-operation on the Staffordshire Hoard shows what can be done. But we should be even more ambitious, matching the growing confidence of Manchester. Ideas like this take years to come to fruition but with Tristam Hunt we might be pushing at an open door.

John Gemmell, Great Barr, Birmingham