Three-Day Week for The Public
The gallery at controversial West Bromwich arts centre The Public will be open to visitors for just three days a week, the Express & Star can reveal.
It will open to the public permanently on the August bank holiday weekend. Some of the exhibits at the £67 million centre have also been modified to slash tens of thousands of pounds from running costs.
The gallery will only open to visitors on Friday, Saturday and Sunday with tours for schools and community groups on Wednesday and Thursday. The rest of the time it will be closed.
Under the original plans guests were to be issued with a radio controlled "tag" on entering, which stored images from exhibits to produce artwork at the end of the visit.
New bosses Sandwell Leisure Trust scrapped those plans, which they described as "phenomenally expensive".
Linda Saunders, the centre's general manager, said: "The exhibits will no longer be connected to each other due to the fact that it would be phenomenally expensive to maintain.
"The cost of using the tags meant it just wasn't a sensible option. We have saved tens of thousands of pounds by deciding not to connect them up."
Two of the eight electronic exhibits have also been taken off display. The gallery, which is now free, will open to the public for the first time at 10am on August 29. It will then open between 10am and 6pm on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
The Public's gallery, which planned to charge £7 for admission, opened for a weekend more than a year ago, two years late. But although the rest of the centre remained open, the gallery stayed shut as hi-tech exhibits did not work.
