Throwdown judge hopeful for pottery industry

Keith Brymer Jones said the collapse of Royal Stafford meant the nation was losing valuable pottery experience

The Great Pottery Throwdown judge and ceramics designer, Keith Brymer Jones, has said the ceramics industry needs to adapt, following the collapse of the Royal Stafford pottery.

He also lamented the loss of a workforce which had "hundreds of years of combined experience".

Administrators appointed on Tuesday said without the guarantee of a profitable order book there was nothing that could be done to save the firm.

Mr Brymer Jones said "joined-up thinking", led by the government, was needed, but other countries, such as Germany, had successfully turned around their ceramics industries.

He said he did not know much about the situation at Royal Stafford, which was based in Burslem.

But he said the loss of another big pottery business "was not really a surprise", given rising energy prices.

"You just have more hoops to go through," he said. "You just wonder when it's going to end."

The collapse of the company has resulted in 83 people losing their jobs and Mr Brymer Jones said: "They're not only their jobs, but we're losing, as a nation, their accumulated skill set."

He said Stoke-on-Trent had been "neglected for so long" and the ceramics industry had been "decimated in the 1990s and early 2000s".

But he saw hope the Labour government would do something to help and said: "We all have to move on and the 21st Century is what it is, but we can adapt."

"We just need that direct, joined-up thinking from the government."

Tristram Hunt, the former MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central, said he was also hopeful.

He told the BBC: "There are still good businesses and a lot of excitement in the design community around ceramics, and we have to thank Keith Brymer Jones and others for assisting with that."

But he added: "The raw economics of ceramics production in an era of such high energy costs is obviously punishing."

He said ceramics were the "lifeblood" of Stoke-on-Trent and also called for government help.