Your editorial raises the question of whether Staffordshire’s potteries can survive (21 September). The answer has got to be “yes”.
The real question is: will the government grasp the immensity of the situation we face? It needs to urgently focus its industrial strategy on short-term transitional support for intensive users of energy like the ceramics sector, to help them towards emissions reductions targets. It also needs to work with the industry and local MPs to secure investment in research, design and skills for the long term.
Next it needs to take account of the legacy costs of the heritage emergency that the closure of so many potbanks has already landed us with. All these derelict industrial sites, together with the public buildings and cultural assets that came about as a result of our local industry, need investment too.
Collective efforts to rescue Middleport Pottery showed a way forward. We are grateful for the several grant programmes which are starting to emerge, but two swallows don’t make a summer. We built our city from natural resources and through the commitment of a loyal workforce. Ceramics remain essential to the national economy. In this, Stoke‑on-Trent’s centenary year, now is the time for the government to tell us how it will liaise with our MPs to bring forward a long-term strategy to ensure certainty and investment to protect output, skills and heritage buildings.
Joan Walley
Stoke-on-Trent
* One of the reasons that ceramics prospered in the Potteries was the abundant fast-burning coal that fired the kilns that gave the city a skyline as distinctive as Manhattan. But the various clean air acts and the move away from coal broke the link between localised energy and manufacturing, and contributed hugely to the various crises that the industry has faced. It also led to most of those kilns disappearing.
So what to do? One of the more obvious things would be to help the industry and the city invest in green energy production and infrastructure modernisation. There are many locations across the Potteries where green-energy production is possible – such as the former Chatterley Whitfield colliery – and this would help to re-establish that lost link between manufacturing and local energy.
And those that are in the business of ceramics in the Potteries should cooperate and collaborate far more in terms of marketing. The Potteries is a world-class brand, and they should exploit it to the max. Josiah Wedgwood was a marketing pioneer, and his legacy is there to learn from. Just ask Apple executives what they think about Wedgwood.
Dave Proudlove
Knypersley, Staffordshire
* The brand benefits of authenticity and staying true to a brand’s heritage by remaining made in England, mentioned in your leader in connection with the success of Burleigh and Emma Bridgewater, are also true for Denby pottery, which has been, and remains, made in Derbyshire for over 200 years and which has thrived in recent years, especially in Asian markets like South Korea
But Denby, along with the entire ceramics industry across the UK, is equally being challenged for staying made in England by the lack of support so far from the government’s industrial policy. Denby continues to secure new business precisely because it is made in England, but securing the future will also need the help of government.
Sebastian Lazell
Chief executive officer, Denby Group
