8:03pm Monday 17th September 2007
By Hannah Crown
FRIENDS of William Morris Gallery say a bid for a £2.5 million lottery grant is in jeopardy because of council cuts.
The council has disputed the claim, made by the society's chairman Martin Stutchfield, who said he was gravely concerned that the council's decision to reduce the gallery's opening hours would make the bid unviable.
"I really do wonder whether a public body is going to put public money into a building with curtailed opening hours," Mr Stutchfield said at last week's meeting of Walthamstow West Community Council.
"Sunday opening is an advantage for local residents but it is going to be a problem for tourists - you are not going to come from central London to look at the gallery for two hours,"
Other concerns were the loss of head curator Peter Cormack. Mr Stutchfield said: "Who is going to be at the gallery to ensure that questions about William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement are answered, and encourage people to come back and do research?"
However, the gallery's manager Lorna Lee, head of the museum, gallery and libraries, said: "The bid is very much on the table."
In what marks a change of language for the council, which used to refer to the £56,000 reduction in funding as "savings", she said: "It was clear that we couldn't sustain the opening hours that we had - it was a springboard for budget cuts."
She emphasised making the gallery in Forest Road, Walthamstow, more relevant and said the council wanted to have collections that represented the diverse people in the borough.
Mr Stutchfield said the grant, which he expects to apply for in September 2008, could be used to provide disabled access to the gallery, resurrect a lost' east wing to create more space, and provide a cafe, while Mrs Lee said zones within the gallery could be created.
A spokeswoman for the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) said decisions on bids were taken on a case by case basis.
"The whole point of giving out grants is that we want to open up heritage for people to enjoy," she said.
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