Museum chief admits it may have to close

THE River & Rowing Museum in Henley could have to close if restructuring plans fail, says the director.

Last week, it was announced that the museum in Mill Meadows would “cease” its current operations due to financial pressures.

The foundation trust which runs the museum said it had become too costly to operate and would need “significant” restructuring to remain viable.

The museum, which opened in 1998, is now in talks with several interested parties but if a solution cannot be found it could close.

Museum director Steve O’Connor told the Henley Standard: “What we’re saying is we can’t carry on as we are.

“We’ve tried extremely hard over the last 27 years to get a gallery operation of this scale to be viable and to cover itself.

“But it has proved a challenge for everybody involved, all the trustees and all the staff that worked here over that period.

“We’ve seen a continued operating loss at the museum and you simply can’t sustain that forever. We are very open to considering every option and that’s why we have gone public — to see who from our local community, or elsewhere, can come in and partner with us and help with the general management and operation of the building.

“If we can’t be successful in that, then unfortunately some sort of closure could well be on the cards.

“We’re all working extremely hard to try to avoid that but it would be wrong to not at least recognise that it is a potential option if we’re not able to find a sustainable way forward.”

Mr O’Connor, who will step down in May to become general manager of Leander Club, said the museum was exploring all options, including running a scaled-down gallery and leasing part of its 25,000 sq ft of floorspace.

The museum currently rents out some of its space as offices.

Mr O’Connor said this arrangement would continue. He said: “When we say a change in operations, what we’re talking about is scaling down the museum and gallery sizes so that we can create sustainable operations.

“We’re looking at the potential for a scaled-down gallery and some more of that square footage being given over to another operator.

“You might see a proposal to build more office space but we, as the museum, wouldn’t want to undertake that ourselves because financially it’s just too risky.

“There could be a future where more than one operator, rather than the charitable foundation, operates out of this building.”

He said he expected the museum to remain open as normal for the rest of the year but could not guarantee this.

Mr O’Connor said: “It really does depend on what options are presented to us, what we think will work and what resources we have available to deliver on those.

“The trustees are working hard to get the plans in place in order to make sure that our staff are completely informed of what’s happening all the way.”

Mr O’Connor said he was pleased with the response the museum had received since last week.

He said: “There has been a number of people come forward and we’re now assessing the various options. We are open to all approaches. Effectively, what we’re doing is consulting the community on what they think should happen to the museum.”

The museum, which recently took over the running of the café on the premises from Velolife, has 40 staff.

Mr O’Connor said its main costs were the upkeep of its building, which were affected by rising energy costs, and essential repair works including refurbishment of the chiller units and boilers.

He said: “This is an expensive building to run day to day. We’ve got large lighting and heating costs and there are ongoing repairs that need to be done.

“With increases in the price of energy, that all compounds to make the running the building extremely expensive.”

Another major expense was ensuring the museum’s collection was kept in a climate-controlled environment. Also an increase in National Insurance contributions had inflated staff costs.

In May, Mr O’Connor announced a three-year plan for the museum to break even. This came after it recorded a deficit of £1,159,100 in 2022/23, which it managed to reduce to £911,374 at the end of the financial year in 2024. This included the cost of the remaining work in the £1.1million refurbishment project, which began in October 2022 and closed the building for nine months.

Mr O’Connor said the refurbishment had been essential.

He said: “Several parts of the building came to the end of their natural life and so needed replacing. We converted most of the lighting areas to LEDs in an effort to save on energy costs.

“The refurbishment allowed us to continue to operate and gave us at least a chance of trying to get back on our feet and create the offices to help boost income.

“This year we should report a deficit somewhere around £600,000, so the general direction of travel is good but the reality is we’re still incurring a loss of half a million pounds a year.

“The original strategy that we set out with was heavily reliant on footfall. The Henley public has supported us really well but we were targeting the wider area and that footfall hasn’t materialised in the way we had hoped.

“Like many museums, we don’t receive any central government funding at all. Central London seems to be starving the rest of the nation of government funding.

“We know that more than £1billion of funding has gone to the major London museums in the last 10 years. Meanwhile, 500 museums across the country have closed in the last 25 years, so there is an imbalance of where the funding is going.

“Our visitors are still feeling the cost of living crisis. I think that’s a real burden for most people at the moment. Plenty of museums around the country are saying similar things about their numbers.”

Mr O’Connor admitted that his resignation had caused the museum to reconsider its operations.

He said: “For me personally, that made it an incredibly tough decision because I’ve been so invested in this place and trying to make it work.”