Ceramicists and studio potters around the world have launched a campaign to save a Nottinghamshire showcase that has built an international reputation but which they regard as being under threat.

For more than two decades the “centre of excellence” for ceramics within the Rufford Country Park near Mansfield has provided residencies for artists, workshops for members of the public, and sales exhibition for the studio work of British ceramicists and potters. It also hosts the annual Earth and Fire ceramics fair which attracts artists from all over the world. But Nottingham County Council has decided that the centre's activities will be confined to non-selling exhibitions, mostly of the council's collections, and although the fair will take place next June, it may be the last.

“It's a tragedy,” says the internationally renowned potter Eddie Curtis, whose work is in the collections of several major museums. “I travel Europe with my ceramics and I know the reputation Rufford has built up over the years, it really is a very special place. I'm flabbergasted at the decision and I can only think that they don't realise what they have.

“People come from all over the world for what it provides, and for tourism reasons alone you'd think it was worth supporting. The Earth and Fire Fair is a tremendous event for all potters and ceramicists, but Rufford is there for us 365 days a year. Instead of cutting it back they should be making it bigger and better.”

An online petition has attracted signatures from as far afield as Germany, Spain, the US and Japan.

The bulk of the Rufford Ceramics Centre's funding is the £160,000 it receives from Nottinghamshire County Council (NCC), and, according to NCC, the centre neither pays a “true rent” nor pays for the dedicated marketing that the council provides.

It has also had an annual grant of almost £19,000 from the Arts Council, which is being stopped in March, and the artist-in-residency programme that Rufford has operated since 1998 was paid for by a series of grants from the lottery and the European Regional Development Fund; both strands ended in June.

The NCC says that the use of the centre is being reconsidered in view of the loss of external funding and the reduction in the county arts budget from £1.8 million at its height to less than £1 million. According to Steve Bradley, NCC's head of sport, arts and tourism, the Rufford centre is being considered in terms of the whole arts budget review, which was finalised in November.

“The review highlighted the need to find new ways of operating to retain, and in some cases develop, the arts opportunities in Nottinghamshire — doing some things differently and being clear about the resources at our disposal,” said Mick Burrows, a strategic director in the council's communities department. “The Gallery and Ceramics Centre was one of the areas where change was needed to secure the future.” The intention is to have exhibitions on a hire basis, shows of the county's permanent collections, educational courses and to open Rufford for more community use.

But to David Binch, who runs the nearby Oakwood Gallery dealing in contemporary ceramics, the Rufford Centre had been an inspiration for countless craftspeople, professional and amateur. “I was lucky to have been inspired by a teacher at school, but it's not taught in our schools any more and for many Rufford has opened the world of ceramics for them, both in understanding them and the process of making, and in appreciating the best,” he said. “We're afraid that it will be lost now.”

Emmanuel Cooper, the studio potter and editor of Ceramics Review, said there will be an inevitable diminution of Rufford and that the problem goes beyond Nottinghamshire. “The reputation of our craftspeople in many forms is worldwide, and it has been built up over years” he said. “There is a general lack of appreciation of how good they are and it's centres like Rufford, which are all too rare, that are at least partly responsible.”