A report into plans by a community group to take over a museum threatened with the axe will come before senior Kirklees councillors.
Now the Friends of Crow Nest Park Mansion in Dewsbury are urging people to “demonstrate their support and enthusiasm” for the plan.
They want people to lobby their councillors, council leader Clr David Sheard, Kirklees chief executive Jacqui Gedman and Dewsbury MP Paula Sheriff before report by council officers goes to Kirklees Cabinet in December for a final decision.
In August, councillors gave the go-ahead for the Friends to proceed with the next stage of their applications to take over the former Dewsbury Museum building in Crow Nest Park under a community asset transfer. The museum closed for the last time last November as part of cost-cutting by the council.
A spokesperson for the Friends said the group had been “rolling our sleeves up and working our socks off” to keep the mansion in the hands of the people of the town, adding: “It’s what the Dewsbury Corporation intended when it bought the whole park and its buildings for the benefit of local people.”
The Friends said the case for retaining the mansion as a community hub had been heard by Kirklees Council.
In a call to supporters, the spokesperson said: “The council agrees that the business plan serves everyone locally and is financially sustainable – it could even provide services that the council has had to cut back on, at no cost to the council.
“We have also been told by all of Dewsbury’s councillors that they support our efforts and do not want to see the mansion sold commercially. But we know that this is a long process and it’s easy to forget how much support there is to make it happen.
“In the past you have supported us wonderfully, a fantastic boost to our small group of volunteers working long hours, unpaid, to make it happen.”
The spokesperson said the Friends understood that councillors faced a huge task with budget cuts, but added: “We can help if the community asset transfer goes ahead as per the business plan.”
