Future of museum under discussion

More publicity and better management is needed to sort out a troubled agricultural museum in Oxfordshire, a public meeting on its future agreed.

Oxfordshire County Council is at the early stages of a rescue plan for Cogges Manor Farm Museum in Witney.

It wants to stop funding the project, so a new investor needs to be found.

The council also plans to set up a new trust to work with a community enterprise group to secure the future of the museum.

The facility, built around an old farmhouse, currently offers "living history" lessons to schoolchildren.

New regime

It had been losing money and faced temporary closure.

At a public meeting in Cogges Church, Witney, on Tuesday a number of county council representatives discussed the museum's next move.

Museum trustee David Bond said: "The whole theme that came out was that we needed to have much more publicity.

"That's going to be in the hands of the county council and it's going to be in the hands of the people who hope to work with the new trust to run the farm successfully in the future.

"Over this coming year and over to next winter the community enterprise group want to try to set up a new regime at Cogges, new management at Cogges."

The council's cabinet meets on 25 November to decide the museum's future.

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