SOUTHAMPTON University chiefs are coming under pressure over their controversial decision to shut the world-renowned Textile Conservation Centre.

The Daily Echo revealed earlier this month that the university says the centre is unviable and should close in 2009.

Staff expertise will be lost and its collections dispersed across the world.

University bosses say they can no longer justify subsidising the centre from other parts of the organisation.

The Textile Conservation Centre (TCC) is the only place in the country offering postgraduate courses in textile conservation.

Its work on Henry VIII's football boots, the hood of the Elephant Man and the battle flag of HMS Victory, Admiral Nelson's flagship, has attracted much media attention.

Since the Daily Echo's story, an e-mail petition on the Downing Street website has started and already attracted more than 1,600 names.

Campaigners have accused the university of a breach of faith in encouraging the centre to come to Winchester in 1998, only to plan to shut it within ten years.

Historian Dr Jane Bridgeman, a former lecturer at Winchester School of Art, said: "It is extraordinary that Southampton University is proposing to close a unique centre of excellence which is so highly regarded at home and abroad.

"The international reputation of Southampton University is such that it should support, rather than destroy, a unique training centre that ten years ago was given trustingly into its care."

Southampton University has discussed the centre with several other institutions but wants to keep the building for "academic purposes."

A Southampton University spokesman said: "The university has done all that it can to support the centre, however we have concluded that we can no longer justify the cross subsidy from other areas of academic endeavour. Given the circumstances, we do not consider that there has been any breach of trust."