10:15am Thursday 21st December 2006
By Jill Crooks
The nationally recognised Wiltshire Heritage Museum is appealing for organisations to give grants to plug a shortfall next year.
The museum's owners, the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, is facing a deficit of £20,000 this year but is covering that from its reserves.
Next year the forecast is for the museum to have a shortfall of over £50,000.
The Devizes-based museum has written to councils appealing for grants. It has asked Devizes Town Council for a grant of £15,000.
Doug Roseaman, deputy chairman of the museum, told a meeting of Devizes Town Council last week that the shortfall had arisen due to cutbacks in funding from Wiltshire County Council and Kennet District Council.
He said: "What was once our main source of income from Wiltshire County Council and Kennet District Council has fallen by 50 percent in the last ten years.
"This year we did a thorough financial review and we took the decision we should try and maintain the same level of service to the public by raising funds and cutting costs where we can.
"Part way through the financial review Wiltshire County Council asked us to consider a scenario where grants were eliminated from the county and district council within five years."
This year the museum has received just under £25,000 from the county council and £9,800 from Kennet District Council.
For 2007/8 Mr Roseaman said even if the museum received £15,000 from Devizes Town Council it would still need to find £30,000.
Mr Roseaman said visitor numbers to the museum had reached an all time high of 22,600 last year and this included tourists from the UK and abroad.
Activity classes for youngsters had to be duplicated during the summer because they were so popular and a Roman activity day for families attracted 1,079 people.
The collections held at the museum were among the earliest to be designated as being of special importance by the Government.
The museum and library contain more than 10,000 items from Devizes that chart the history of the town from 10,000 years ago to the present day.
The town council used to give an annual grant to the museum but this was phased out about six years ago.
Councillors recognised the good work of the museum but thought £15,000 was too large a sum. They deferred making a decision to the full council tonight (Thursday).
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