Walsall Leather Museum decision to face second round of scrutiny at public meeting this week

The petition, signed by 3,235 people, will be presented to members of the prosperous places and investment scrutiny committee on Tuesday, January 20.

Lead petitioner, Lauren Broxton, launched the campaign in response to the council’s decision to relocate the Leather Museum from its current location on Littleton Street West to a mystery town centre building.

The existing building, a Victorian former leather factory, will then be ‘disposed of’ to Walsall College for its Special Educational Needs and Disability offering, currently based at Hawbush Road.

The leather fashion designer launched the petition in November 2025, and it gained over 1,000 signatures in five days.

It’s the second time the Leather Museum will be debated at the prosperous places and investment scrutiny committee.

In October, five members of Walsall Labour Group called for the cabinet’s decision to be scrutinised at the public meeting.

Councillor Klara Margetts, speaking on behalf of the five councillors, said the decision was going ‘against the wishes of the majority of residents’.

At the meeting Lauren Broxton said the council is ‘grossly mishandling’ one of the town’s ‘most definitive assets’.

Historian Carl Chinn added that Walsall Council has ‘gained an unfavourable reputation for closing its museums’.

At the meeting leader and deputy leader at the authority, Councillor Mike Bird and Councillor Adrian Andrew, provided few reasons as to why the public should support the decision, an absence of justification that has continued to this day according to campaigners.

Members of the scrutiny committee voted in favour of having the relocation decision looked at again by cabinet members.

But at the cabinet meeting on October 15, council bosses chose to ignore the pleas of the community and press on with the original plans.

Last week, Councillor Bird confirmed on Radio WM that the council had submitted an offer on a town centre building for the museum to move in to.

He said that details will be provided within six weeks if the offer is successful.

Also on air he said the current museum building has ‘no heritage at all’, and claimed that the costs of buying a new building, renovating it, and renovating the current site for the college, won’t cost Walsall taxpayers a penny.

When accused of closing the last museum in Walsall by campaigner Vicky Roden, he said the museum next to the Lichfield Street Library was still open.

Vicky accused him of being ‘less than truthful’.

The scrutiny meeting is set to take place at 6pm, Tuesday 20 January, at Walsall Council House.