Struggling Ceramica could be scrapped

A £2 MILLION millennium project could be shelved just five years after it opened because of dwindling visitor numbers.

A report to Stoke-on-Trent City Council has recommended taking over the Ceramica building, in Burslem town centre, and turning it into a completely new attraction.

The suggestion comes as the site, in Market Place, is attracting fewer than 45 visitors a day and costing the city almost £150,000 a year to run.

When the Ceramica project was first conceived, there were wild predictions that it would bring up to 100,000 visitors and tourists to Burslem each year.

But The Sentinel obtained figures under the Freedom of Information Act which show it attracted just 11,237 visits during 2006/07, which was down by 764 – or six per cent – on the previous year.

The data also revealed that the city council gave the Ceramica Trust, which runs the museum, £146,500 in funding last year, up from £130,000 in 2006/07.

Concerned at the mounting cost of keeping Ceramica going, the council and the North Staffordshire Regeneration Partnership (NSRP) commissioned an independent study to look at options for its future.

Construction and management consultants, Turner & Townsend, completed its study in September and has now put forward its recommendations.

These include persuading the NSRP to invest in Ceramica to create a new kind of visitor attraction which will kick-start the regeneration of the town centre.

The report will be discussed by the council's transformation and resources overview and scrutiny committee on Wednesday.