Glass row heats up after Cabinet vote (From Stourbridge News)

Glass row heats up after Cabinet vote

1:13pm Thursday 10th December 2009 in News

Protester Jan Hendry says Dudley Council should work harder to find a new home for the borough glass collection

CAMPAIGNERS have turned up the heat in the row over the future of the borough’s glass heritage.

Dudley Council’s Cabinet last night (Wednesday December 9) voted to move a controversial feasibility study into where to show the collection, currently at the Broadfield House museum in Kingswinford, into a second stage.

Cabinet members accepted a recommendation for a detailed investigation into the possibility of moving the collection to the Red House Cone in Wordsley.

The Save Our Glass Heritage group say while they welcome the council’s recent purchase of extra property at the Cone, the council should do more to look at other sites.

Speaking after the Cabinet made its decision, Jan Hendry, from Save Our Glass Heritage, said: “They are not looking at any alternatives, they have wasted £30,000 of taxpayers money.

“They need to work harder, if they want a world class glass collection they are going to have to bring us along with them.”

The row over the feasibility study escalated when a member of the Friends of Broadfield House walked out of a meeting on the study chaired by Dudley Council deputy leader Cllr Les Jones.

The Friends group staged their protest because they felt they were not being listened to, Jan Hendry says the decision to move the collection to the Cone, which she believes is unsuitable, is a “done deal”.

Cllr Jones told the Cabinet he was disappointed by the walkout.

Cllr Jones said: “This was the first of a series of meetings to look at the next stages.

“The purpose was to make the Friends group aware, to make them feel part of the process, I was explaining a position, they took that as fact and it wasn’t.”

He said he later wrote to the Friends to clarify the situation and reconfirmed the council’s position that if moving to the Cone was not viable the collection would stay at Broadfield House.

Cllr Jones described claims the move to the Cone was a done deal as “rubbish”.

He said: “We have kept an open mind, it is an emotive issue, we started the study relating to the Cone, to change the remit would be crazy.

“We did an exercise to look at the two most likely and available sites in the Glass Quarter and the minimum cost to make them bigger than Red House was £7m.

“We are looking to create a much more appealing offer for the glass museum and we want the support of people pledged to the glass collection.”