I promised that my next post on the Whitechapel Bell Foundry would be on the subject of fund-raising for it. This has taken longer than it should have: my fault.

The truth is that there are two requirements. The first is for a reasonably big injection of funds immediately (it is reckoned to be as much as £150k) to help fight the legal case against Raycliff, now that planning permission has been called in for a decision by Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State. This will require the help and advice of specialist lawyers and planning consultants. They don’t come cheap.

In the longer term, we will need big sums – probably in the region of £5m or more – if we are to be successful in keeping it as a Foundry: to buy it, preserve it, and put in Factum Arte to run it as a sustainable business operation. A detailed business plan is currently being prepared and will be available.

The appeal is being run under the auspices of Re-Form, the recently re-named United Kingdom Historic Building Prservation Trust, who worked on Middleport Pottery. They have a page on their website devoted to Whitechapel (https://re-form.org/whitechapel/information) and have set up a straightforward way of donating (https://re-form.org/whitechapel/donate).

Please give generously ! And please retweet. We need to win.