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Your interactive Daily Echo
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Trying to weave future for centre
THE Government has refused to intervene over the threatened closure of the world-renowned Textile Conservation Centre in Winchester.
The centre trains most of the world's fabric conservation experts and among the historic textiles it has preserved have been the topsail of Nelson's HMS Victory, Freddie Mercury's imitation leather trousers and Henry VIII's football boots.
The threat to the centre by Southampton University was revealed by the Daily Echo last year sparking a national campaign and international outcry.
An e-petition started on the Prime Minister's website has attracted more than 3,300 names.
A Government statement said Southampton University has an annual budget of £325m, and "within that total, it is solely responsible for deciding on its mission and strategy including which departments and centres it opens, closes, expands or contracts.
"It is not the Government's role to override the decisions of the university on this issue."
Martin Tod, Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Winchester reacted angrily. "The Government is wrong to wash its hands of the Textile Conservation Centre," he said.
"This isn't just about the University of Southampton. If we lose the TCC, it's a national loss. Closure of the TCC means the end of postgraduate training in textile conservation in the UK. There is no plan B'.
"The country as a whole will be worse off, and there will be knock-on consequences for our museums and heritage - and the tourism and arts that rely on them."
Experts have said that the closure will hamper museums' ability to care for their collections.
The university plans to close the centre in 2009, saying it is too expensive to run. Based at Winchester School of Art, it has around 15 staff and 60 postgraduate students.
Campaigners are furious because much of the cost of setting up the TCC in 1998 was paid by charitable trusts.
They say the university lured the then-financially sound TCC from Hampton Court Palace in London. If the centre is now losing money, that is a result of poor management since its transfer to Winchester, they say.
2:31pm Monday 21st July 2008
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