Letter to the editor: Urbis and the National Football Museum, one year on
Article published: Tuesday, September 14th 2010
A year after the announcement that talks were under way to move the National Football Museum to Manchester, and the subsequent closure of the Urbis art gallery where it will be housed, a former employee of Urbis wrote to us to express their thoughts on the controversial decision and its aftermath.
The distinctive glassy exterior of the Urbis building
Dear Mule,
Over a year ago, on September 8th 2009, the Manchester Evening News announced that talks between Manchester City Council and the National Football Museum (NFM), based in Preston, were at an advanced stage with a view to bringing the attraction to Urbis.
Much discussion ensued pertaining to the rights and wrongs of relocating the museum, but what was completely swept under the carpet (except by Mule) was the fate of the Urbis staff who had worked so hard to create something memorable and unique in our city’s cultural landscape.
Urbis closed to the public on February 27th 2010. The plan is to re-open in the latter part of 2011 as the NFM. At least 70 Urbis staff, including myself, have been made redundant by the City Council as a result of this closure.
Later this month the Council will welcome the Labour Party to Manchester for their annual conference, but by needeessly culling our jobs at a time of almost unparallelled economic gloom the Town Hall has betrayed every principle underpinning the Labour movement as well as Manchester’s fine and noble radical heritage. As a lifelong Socialist, to think that this butchery has taken place under the aegis of a Labour authority breaks my heart.
Manchester City Council is elected by the people of this city to look after their interests. That is its very raison d’etre. It is not elected to throw Manchester people onto the dole and has instead a clear commitment to improving employment opportunity for Mancunians. Page 11 of MCC’s Corporate Plan 2007 – 10, for instance, states that one of the Council’s key aims is, “reducing worklessness, improving access to employment and increasing employment retention.”
What has happened to us runs entirely counter to that.
What makes the situation more problematic is that local people have been replaced by NFM staff from Preston who have no link or connection with Manchester. For born and bred Mancunians like myself this is especially difficult to take and I fail to see how the Council can morally justify their actions.
It feels very much as if the city these days is not being run in the interests of Mancunians, One feels rather that Mancunians get in the way of vanity projects such as the NFM and need to be disposed of.
My conclusion is that this Town Hall executive has been in power for too long and has lost touch with the men and women it claims to represent.
“You have sat here for too long and done no good”, said Oliver Cromwell to the corrupt Long Parliament in 1653, “Go, in the name of God go, and be done with you”!
I can think of no better advice to give the ruling cabal inside Manchester Town Hall.
All the very best to Mule
The author of this letter asked to remain anonymous – MULE Collective
More: Manchester
Comments
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Most frustrating of all is that Urbis has now been sat empty for over 6 months now without a scrap of work being done to start the conversion to the NFM. Tenders for the internal building works have only just gone out (seen in construction news last week). What an incredibly needless waste of a public resource. What was the point in closing the place and making so many people jobless, if the NFM were not going to do anything with it for so long? It is heartbreaking to see the talented and well-connected creatives, managers and community workers at Urbis thrown to the dogs and replaced by unsuited outsiders who don’t know or care about Manchester, or the broader aims of Urbis.
Comment by tickle on September 15, 2010 at 12:05 am
The anonymous author has it right – MCC has sold us out. x -
Whatever the criticisms of Urbis (and there were a few), closing it was a big mistake.
Although I’m sure the staff at Urbis will do well take their talents elsewhere (outside Manchester even – to the city’s detriment)the idea of making so many redundant just to bring in a bland, monochrome, museum that already failed in Preston is saddening.
I think MCC has lead a lot of good people down the garden path.
Comment by Anson on September 16, 2010 at 3:27 pm -
Urbis wasn’t wanted by the people of Manchester.
That’s why the council had to pour in millions of pounds to keep it running as long as it did.
Why should the public keep on paying for something they don’t want?
Comment by simon on October 5, 2010 at 3:01 pm -
I wouldn’t say it wasn’t wanted. Our visitor figures were excellent – 260,000 per year and growing. But it isn’t just about figures though – it’s the service the building offered to the city as a whole, e.g Reclaim and Urbis City Tours, to say nothing of the diverse, exciting exhibitions on view.
But anyway, that’s not the point of my letter. What I’m upset about is the brutality with which we, the staff, were treated, needlessly ‘thrown to the dogs’as tickle says above. That, in my view, is no way for our local council to behave and it’s certainly no way for a Labour council to behave. It’s the kind of act one associates with Mrs.Thatcher.
I firmly believe mate, that if Urbis had been allowed to continue we would have spread this city’s name around Europe and the world much more effectively than our successor ever will. Don’t forget we weren’t even given a decade to work with. But one of the problems with Manchester historically has been a short-sightedness and, behind the brashness, a lack of belief in its own creativity and potential.
To close the building is bad enough in my view but to fling 80 plus people out of work, well, it’s almost like they’re punishing us for having the temerity to think we could push some boundaries in this city. Flight of Icarus, etc. Cheers.
Ah well, maybe they
Comment by Tirian on October 13, 2010 at 5:16 pm
The comments are closed.
