CITY MUSEUM HANDED OVER TO VOLUNTEERS
Transfer will ‘release new funding streams’
A GLOBALLY unique tourist attraction is finally set to be transferred to volunteers – after more than a decade of negotiations.
Leaders at Stoke-on-trent City Council are due to agree ‘in principle’ to offload Etruria Industrial Museum to Shirley Bone and Flint Mill Volunteers (SBFMV) on a 40-year peppercorn lease.
The museum houses the only operational steam driven potters’ mill in the world and one of the oldest working rotative beam engines, while the mill and kiln are Scheduled Ancient Monuments.
It has been operated in partnership by the council and SBFMV, a charitable incorporated organisation, using funds from the museums service.
But council leaders say that transferring the museum to the volunteers on a long lease will allow them to access alternative funding not available to the authority to develop the site as an attraction and increase revenue.
Last year, the council agreed to pause proposals to cut the museum’s funding from £77,000 to £52,000 to give more time for the lease negotiations to be completed.
This budget cut will now go ahead, but the council says it will help the volunteers obtain ‘transformation funding’ to mitigate against this.
Council leaders say the current model of delivery is ‘unsustainable’, and the museum’s transfer will allow increased access, further research activities and more volunteering opportunities.
Lorraine Beardmore, cabinet member for culture, leisure and public health, said: “By transferring the museum to a charitable organisation, they will be able to download extra funding to improve the facility that isn’t available to us as a local authority.
“The museum is a great attraction and it gets a lot of visitors when it hosts its steaming events. We’d like to see more events like that in future.”
Cabinet members will be asked to approve in principle the transfer of the museum at their meeting on Tuesday. Officers will be granted delegated authority to agree the details of the lease, and determine the ongoing transitional support to the volunteers.
According to cabinet report, the transfer will release the council from its current obligations to keep the beam engine, grinding pans and other fixed plant within the mill building operational and in good repair.
The council will then provide the charity with an annual sum to cover staffing and other costs related to operating the museum and mill.
A spokesman for SBFMV said that the details around the lease and ongoing support still had to be agreed. He added: “We hope that this will lead to a viable and sustainable way forward.”