The new Wandsworth Museum will be a model that can revive other local museums, its director has pledged.
Andrew Leitch, director of the independent trust that will run the museum for the London borough, said an annual membership, active education programmes and changing exhibitions could rejuvenate such museums.
Leitch, a former head of major projects and business planning at the National Museum of Science and Industry, said: “We have been working for the past year on a model that can wash its own face.
"There is a sense that it is possible to create something that would be a new model able to restrict the ongoing falling numbers visiting smaller museums.”
Leitch said annual membership would cost “about the same price as seeing a movie” and help to create a “sense of ownership”.
“In terms of the exhibition focus, the permanent gallery has typically been the biggest,” he said. “Our permanent gallery will be one-third of the collection and the rest will change two or three times a year.”
The new museum, which will display the archive of Wandsworth’s Young’s Brewery, is due to open in May.
Its council-run predecessor was closed in 2008 to save £400,000 a year. But hedge-fund philanthropist Michael Hintze stepped in to pledge an initial £1m plus £200,000 a year for five years.
