Museum remains ‘too costly’

THE River & Rowing Museum in Henley cannot continue in its current form, its trustees have said.

The foundation trust has said that the museum in Mill Meadows is not sustainable in its current format and has to be restructured.

The future of its collection, charitable funds and building, which it currently has a 72-year lease on, will be looked at.

It said its trustees have made the “difficult decision” to explore new options, while the foundation still has the financial capability to make “considered choices”.

The museum said it expects these plans to take time and collaboration to come to fruition.

In May last year, the museum’s director Steve O'Connor announced a three-year plan to break even.

This came after the museum recorded a deficit of £1,159,100 in 2022/23 a loss which it managed to reduce to £911,374 at the end of the financial year in 2023/24. This included the cost of the remaining building works associated with a £1.1 million refurbishment project which began in October 2022 and shut the museum for nine months.

In recent years, the foundation said good progress had been made on increasing visitor numbers and a stable income stream had been established from leasing office spaces to local businesses. But it has now admitted that these improvements were not enough to match its outgoings.

In a statement, the foundation said: “The stark reality is that even these improvements don’t match expenditure and despite recent investment in the building and the commercial model, sustainability remains out of reach.

“The board of trustees has looked at further options, including converting more space into offices, but such initiatives are expensive, commercially risky and ultimately insufficient on their own.

“Therefore, the responsible course of action for the foundation is to now cease the current operation in a considered and managed way, which preserves the public benefits in the assets we hold — namely our building, collection and charitable funds.”

The foundation added that the impending departure of Mr O’Connor, who has been in the position since July 2023, had made it harder. He is set to take over the role of general manager at Leander Club in May.

David Worthington, chair of trustees, said: “This is a very sad day. A remarkable project was dreamt up in the mid-Nineties and launched to international and national acclaim.

“However, it was always too costly for its location and subject matter and despite the efforts of the museum’s trustees and workforce from 1998 to the present day, finding a sustainable solution has proved elusive.

“The unavoidable reality is that the building is simply too large and the galleries too ambitious in scale.

“To secure the future of the foundation we will consider all options, from all quarters, and given that we have taken this step now, not when it’s too late, we have the potential to see our valuable assets re-emerge on a scale that is affordable and sustainable.”

The River & Rowing Museum first opened its doors in 1998 and has a collection of 30,000 objects spread across five galleries and storage facilities.