00:00Right here, the old factory walls still echo with the sound of cutters and stitchers.
00:05Craftspeople show visitors the skills that made Walsall famous.
00:08Schoolchildren handle hoids.
00:10Tourists watch saddlers at work.
00:12It isn't just heritage on display, it's living practice.
00:16That's why the prospect of shutting the doors
00:18or shifting the museum into some generic town centre shell
00:21cut deep with people who knows what's at stake.
00:25So, the Leather Museum is an iconic Walsall landmark.
00:29It's like the Hippo or the Arboretum or the Art Gallery.
00:33And it's a place that pretty much everybody who's grown up in Walsall over the past 40 years
00:38has a shared memory of.
00:40Everyone's been on a school trip or come here with their families.
00:43And one of the reasons why it matters so much to the people of Walsall
00:46is this kind of institution with the visitor figures that the council provided
00:52generates revenue of somewhere between £150,000 and £400,000
00:58for the town every single year.
01:01And that will only increase as visitor numbers increase.
01:06The council says the move would save money.
01:08A neat line on a balance sheet.
01:10But what looks efficient in a spreadsheet
01:12can feel like vandalism when it hollows out a town's identity.
01:16We've already lost at Walsall Museum.
01:18Campaigners fear Leather could be next.
01:20They argue that closing this building, this site,
01:23would break the chain between trade, community and craft.
01:27Walsall Leather Museum, the building is not just a container for the collection.
01:32It's the first part of the collection that you encounter as you visit.
01:37So for it to potentially be sold off raises grave concerns for the future of all of the other
01:48heritage objects that are currently in the council's care.
01:52This industry isn't just a relic.
01:55Saddlers here still hold royal warrants.
01:58Luxury brands still buy Walsall Leather.
02:01The museum sits at the junction between past and present,
02:04keeping skills alive while drawing visitors into the town.
02:08Strip that away and you're not just a rising history,
02:11you're weakening an economy that still has a pulse.
02:13The museum actually has a vital role because, first of all,
02:18it is an absolutely amazing contextual experience of what historically the leather industry has been.
02:29But it's also celebrating the future of this incredibly sustainable industry.
02:36And one of the few industries that Walsall still has a really viable international reputation with.
02:43So for a modern day leather worker to be able to make and show work in the same building
02:49that their great, great, great grandparents also worked is a connection that you just cannot replicate.
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