LISTENING to the radio, I found out the Museum of Carpet is closing permanently (by the end of the year).
Geoffrey Gilbert, chair of the Carpet Museum Trust board of trustees, announced the closure on Tuesday, November 18 and said revenue could no longer match the museum’s running costs.
“In the last four or five years we have really struggled and we’re about £30,000 to £50,000 short,” he said.
I find it very sad that councillors have spent millions restoring the Town Hall and used millions of pounds of government money creating a park area and a set of steps to nowhere.
If the residents of Kidderminster had been consulted about the latter they would probably have said: “What is the point and what a waste of money?”
And it will probably mostly be used by drug addicts.
Kidderminster was the biggest carpet manufacturing centre in the country and known around the world.
Brintons even held the Royal Warrant.
I think Wyre Forest District Council has a responsibility to make sure the collection objects, like the looms, archives, books and photographs relating to 300 years of carpet history, are preserved and not lost forever.
The town has lost too much of its historical past, like the original library and museum building in Market Street and the playhouse at the end of Bromsgrove Street and Station Hill that were all razed to the ground.
Perhaps the carpet museum should be relocated to Brinton Park where regeneration work is already in progress?
Paul Dakin
Kidderminster
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