Eighty years after his death, DH Lawrence is still a controversial figure. Though his reputation as a writer was always immense, his work was often considered scandalous, even in his lifetime. Yet, when he died in 1930, the Guardian compared him to Tolstoy. Posthumously Lawrence was elevated to the English literature pantheon by FR Leavis so that, by mid-century, novels such as Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow and Women in Love had become staples. By the time of the Lady Chatterley trial in 1960 there were probably few more highly regarded 20th-century English novelists. But feminism and time upended Lawrence's reputation and, with the decline of the industrial Britain in which he was rooted, he became first unfashionable and then even unread. Although he is certainly not forgotten today in the Nottinghamshire where he grew up, and which always haunted him, Lawrence's fall may be about to accelerate again. Spending cuts mean that Broxtowe borough council – currently run by a Lib Dem-Labour coalition – is planning to close the Durban House heritage centre which, along with the writer's birthplace, is at the centre of the Lawrence associations in Eastwood. Yesterday Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis and others called on Broxtowe to keep "this national asset" open. They are right. Yet in tough times it seems hard for Broxtowe to have to bear the whole £60,000-a-year weight. Could today's big-name writers not merely protest against the centre's closure, but also join with Broxtowe to find a solution?