Gladstone Pottery Museum will partially open to public in winter

Gladstone Pottery Museum has been the backdrop to film and TV programmes including The Great Pottery Throw Down and biopic The Colour Room

Plans to shut a pottery museum for five months a year have been changed following an outcry.

The Grade II* listed Gladstone Pottery Museum was due to shut over the winter under proposals put forward by Stoke-on-Trent City Council.

Now, after more than 20,000 signed a petition, the museum will open during February half-term and the Christmas period.

The venue is the base for Channel 4's The Great Pottery Throw Down.

Changes have also been made to proposals regarding the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery - it will open to the public Wednesday to Friday with Tuesdays being reserved for schools .

Following a budget consultation, the city council said it had listened and paused a proposal to cut 19 full-time posts to look again at costs.

The final approval will be made at a meeting of full council on 24 February.

On Tuesday, leader Abi Brown said footfall was "falling and there is an urgent need for renewal".

But she also stated the authority would "pause the proposed changes to the curatorial staffing and remove the budget reduction with a view to bringing back a preferred model in a month or two's time that I am confident will enhance our current offer".

The Potteries museum would open from Wednesday to Sunday and host schools on a Tuesday

Ms Brown said in the Levelling Up white paper launched several weeks ago, the government had committed that its relevant national expert institutions would work with the city to enhance its ceramics heritage situation.

She added: "We have many ideas to how such a vision could be realised but we need to take time to understand what is on offer."

The leader also said as "we refresh our offer, and hopefully increase footfall, it may well lead to an opportunity in the future to reopen both venues for longer periods".