West Berkshire Council has agreed to match-fund an £84,500 Heritage Lottery Fund grant to save the West Berkshire Museum in Newbury.
The museum was in danger of permanent closure because the buildings have limited access and do not meet the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act.
It will now shut this month to undergo a refurbishment programme. The museum is due to reopen in March 2014.
Manager Steph Gillett said: “There wasn’t a plan B. If we hadn’t got the money, we would have had to think about how museum services might be provided in the future.”
Museums Journal understands that the museum is reviewing staff structures, and will announce the outcome later this year.
There has also been good news for the Chard Museum in Somerset, which was threatened with closure after South Somerset District Council reduced its grant.
But the museum has filled the funding gap by signing up more than 250 new Friends of the Museum at £10 each and by campaigning for donations.
The council grant dropped from £8,500 to £6,840 this year – and will be reduced to nothing in 2014. The museum’s vice-chairman, David Ricketts, said: “This will keep us going this year and next, but we will have to find other ways to fill the gap after that.”
Meanwhile, a petition to save the Stamford Museum was submitted to Lincolnshire County Council last month with more than 1,000 signatures.
The council is proposing to save £150,000 by closing the Stamford Museum, the Church Farm Museum in Skegness and the Grantham Museum, which between them employ the equivalent of nine full-time posts.
Stamford Town Council is also looking into the possibility of creating a trust for Stamford Museum, a move that has been welcomed by the county council.
A formal decision on the proposals will be made in December.
