2:24pm Thursday 18th January 2007
By Jill Crooks
THE future of Wiltshire Heritage Museum is in doubt if a cut in funding is agreed by Wiltshire County Council.
The county council's cabinet has done a U-turn and is now being recommended to give the Devizes museum a £12,500 grant for 2007/08. But this would be 50 per cent less than this year's grant.
This recommendation will be discussed by the cabinet on January 23 and follows a decision it made on December 19 when it decided not to award any funding to the museum because it understood the museum had large levels of reserves, which the museum's trustees have denied.
Bill Perry, chairman of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society which owns the museum, said: "We are pleased there appears to be some movement in the council's position and we are grateful to those councillors who have made representations on our behalf.
"However, cutting our grant by fifty per cent and the intention to phase it out after two years will still leave us in a difficult position.
"We would find it difficult, if not impossible, to make up the shortfall.
"It must put the future of the museum in doubt in the longer term."
Mr Perry would not speculate whether that could mean the museum closing.
He said: "We need time to work out the implications."
Mr Perry and colleagues will be attending the cabinet meeting to try to persuade councillors that the museum should receive more than the grant proposed.
Devizes Town Council has agreed to give a grant of £3,000 to help the funding crisis.
The meeting at County Hall in Trowbridge is on January 23 at 10.30am.
People can attend and ask questions at the beginning of the meeting.
Written notice of questions or statements should be give to the council's head of democratic and members' services by noon tomorrow.
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