Can politics be put aside to ensure museum not lost to public forever?
TWO school groups were among the visitors to the last day of Helmshore Textile Museum before it was, to use council speak, mothballed.
Will those children grow up to be the last children who got to visit the museum when it was open to the public?
If there’s one thing I think we can all agree on, it’s that we all hope that isn’t the case.
I visited Helmshore Farmers Market on Sunday morning.
It was a sunny, autumnal day.
The market felt busier than it had done for several months, a sign perhaps, that the work to put up more adverts for the market around the area had worked.
It felt a great shame that this market was taking place in the car park of a museum which was locked up.
Our history close enough to touch, but locked behind closed doors with no guarantee we’ll ever get to see it again. Cut through the political waffle which has dogged Lancashire county council’s decision to ‘mothball’ the museum and you find a vital community facility falling foul of brutal budget cuts from a Tory government and the inability of the local Labour county council to plan properly for the future.
Local MP Jake Berry has supported the government budgets in recent years which have resulted in local government funding being slashed to such an extent that LCC risks being insolvent within two years.
Local Labour councillors supported the Labour budget at LCC which included closing the museum and various libraries.
The fact that LCC now won’t meet its savings targets for this year, and yet has still chosen to close the museum, speaks volumes.
There is a lot of talk from Labour about ongoing discussions to ensure the museum has a future.
As those fighting to re-open Haslingden baths know only too well, an uphill task of taking on a council amenity becomes much harder once that amenity has shut.
Conservative county councillors appeared in the press at the weekend presenting a bleak view of the prospects of Helmshore museum re-opening.
Once it’s locked, it’s lost was their view – although there is talk of it still being opened for specific school visits.
Haslingden MP Graham Jones, however, painted a more positive view.
He was confident it would re-open.
Mr Berry, meanwhile, described Helmshore museum in the Free Press last week as “having the potential to be a world heritage site.”
Now is the time for action, not just words.
Petitions are all well and good but we need firmer action.
Our local politicians need to recognise their responsibility for the current state of affairs – be that for supporting a government which did not hide its determination to slash council budgets or for supporting a local council which has dealt with the cuts in such a haphazard fashion – and turn things around.
So many questions remain unanswered.
Why give it a stay of execution in March only to close it in September when discussions about a transfer were still ongoing?
Why wasn’t LCC planning for this long ago?
The budget cuts verge on the inhumane, but they weren’t a surprise.
Why are local Tories incapable of drawing the link between what their party does nationally and the impact it has locally?
Do Labour councillors feel let down by their rulers in Preston?
And perhaps most important of all: Are our local politicians ready to put politics to one side and ensure a museum of national significance is not lost to the public forever?
I sincerely hope they are.