The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery and the Gladstone Pottery Museum play a vital role in the life of the local community. They celebrate the people, history and landscape of the Potteries, providing a ‘memory bank’ for the city and help to create a sense of place.

They hold Designated collections of regional, national and international significance, including world-famous ceramics and the Staffordshire Hoard.  The temporary exhibitions programme takes in historic and contemporary visual arts, crafts and ceramics, providing a window onto a wider cultural world. Both museums are past winners of the Museum of the Year award, but have faced severe cutbacks during recent years.

We believe that a joint CIC for Leisure and Museums could be a disaster. Leisure Services and Museums are very different from each other, with very different aims, needs and audiences. It is easy to see how our museums might be stifled and eventually fail completely as a junior partner in an organisation focused primarily on sport and leisure.

We believe that a separate charitable trust offers the best chance for survival for our museums.  A charity would be able to attract funding through grants, donations, bequests and Gift Aid. Above all, however, a trust would offer the opportunity for the museums to rediscover their vitality and become a crucible for creativity.

We are encouraging as many people as possible to sign our on-line petition in order to help the City Council come to the right decision. We hope that the council will listen to people who actually know and care about our museums.

Our petition can be found on the change.org website by using the following link:

https://www.change.org/p/stoke-on-trent-city-council-trust-or-bust-help-save-stoke-on-trent-s-museums

Thank you,

The Friends of The Potteries Museums & Art Gallery is a registered charity No 507834