Cold comfort indeed for the 6,000 or so skilled workers who are presumably now scrapping over the 350 new jobs at the supermarket. But how long will it be before someone suggests that a museum is built on or near the Longbridge site, and that cultural regeneration is the answer?
It can't have escaped many people's notice that all four finalists for this year's Gulbenkian Prize were museums that represent the former industry of their local area (see news p13).
Despite being pleased for the Big Pit, I couldn't help feeling rather gloomy when the announcement was made. Are museums really all that we have left of industries which employed hundreds of thousands of people in their heydays?
Of course, cultural regeneration can have a positive impact. It can put an area on the map (let's be honest - a few of us weren't exactly sure where Shildon or Blaenafon were before the Gulbenkian Prize).
The influx of visitors can bring a bit of extra business to a town: more than 150,000 people have visited Locomotion since it opened in September and they have brought with them new shops and cafes, and house prices have even gone up (although that's not always necessarily a good thing).
But not even the most enthusiastic proponents of cultural regeneration would argue that a new museum could replace all the lost jobs. At the height of production, 270,000 worked in mining in Wales; 80,000 in car manufacturing in Coventry; 15,000 in the herring curing trade in Great Yarmouth; and nearly 3,000 at the wagon works in Shildon.
And what happens when the local connection with that industry dies out? A substantial number of visitors at the four shortlisted museums have some personal or family connection with the story that the museums tell. When that connection is broken, will the museums also become redundant?
Hopefully not. The role these museums can play is to remind local people what their communities were built on. In this age of soulless clone towns, with a branch of Starbucks and Gap (and Tesco) on every corner, museums that represent former industries can help engender a pride in the past and a sense of place.
And the crucial thing that the four museums have in common is community involvement. In close-knit communities, where the closure of industry has left a bitter taste in the mouth, it has been essential to involve those people whose story it is from the beginning.
So it's not all gloom and doom. The fact that all four made the shortlist of the most prestigious museum prize in the UK is testament to the way communities have been involved in telling their own stories - and also to our desire to understand them.
Sharon Heal
sharon@museumsassociation.org
It can't have escaped many people's notice that all four finalists for this year's Gulbenkian Prize were museums that represent the former industry of their local area (see news p13).
Despite being pleased for the Big Pit, I couldn't help feeling rather gloomy when the announcement was made. Are museums really all that we have left of industries which employed hundreds of thousands of people in their heydays?
Of course, cultural regeneration can have a positive impact. It can put an area on the map (let's be honest - a few of us weren't exactly sure where Shildon or Blaenafon were before the Gulbenkian Prize).
The influx of visitors can bring a bit of extra business to a town: more than 150,000 people have visited Locomotion since it opened in September and they have brought with them new shops and cafes, and house prices have even gone up (although that's not always necessarily a good thing).
But not even the most enthusiastic proponents of cultural regeneration would argue that a new museum could replace all the lost jobs. At the height of production, 270,000 worked in mining in Wales; 80,000 in car manufacturing in Coventry; 15,000 in the herring curing trade in Great Yarmouth; and nearly 3,000 at the wagon works in Shildon.
And what happens when the local connection with that industry dies out? A substantial number of visitors at the four shortlisted museums have some personal or family connection with the story that the museums tell. When that connection is broken, will the museums also become redundant?
Hopefully not. The role these museums can play is to remind local people what their communities were built on. In this age of soulless clone towns, with a branch of Starbucks and Gap (and Tesco) on every corner, museums that represent former industries can help engender a pride in the past and a sense of place.
And the crucial thing that the four museums have in common is community involvement. In close-knit communities, where the closure of industry has left a bitter taste in the mouth, it has been essential to involve those people whose story it is from the beginning.
So it's not all gloom and doom. The fact that all four made the shortlist of the most prestigious museum prize in the UK is testament to the way communities have been involved in telling their own stories - and also to our desire to understand them.
Sharon Heal
sharon@museumsassociation.org
