AS the controversy over the plan to shut Blackburn's Lewis Textile Museum takes a new twist - now, it may stay open though the front door will be shut - we award the council full marks for paying heed to the public's protest.

But our marks for taking the right action are on hold.

For we must wait and see whether the museum's future is truly safe, or whether this is a time-buying fudge to enable closure by stealth.

After all, this new option, which has suddenly emerged amid public outrage over the closure plan, was never on the table to begin with as far as we can see, despite the pretence today that it was.

That it surfaces now may be a healthy sign of the council's listening capabilities, but it ought not to be some temporary device for deflecting public anger.

Rather it should be the means for responding to it in the right way.

Meantime, as the channel for public opinion that is overwhelmingly in favour of keeping the Lewis open, this newspaper remains vigilant.

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Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.