MUSEUM bosses have warned they may need make drastic changes to cope with shrinking public sector subsidies.

The proposed City of York Council budget includes a £500,000 cut in the annual grant for York Museums Trust.

Now the chief executive of the trust, Dr Janet Barnes, has said the museums will have to work more as a business than a cultural institution p- and may need to increase charges and venue hire fees to cope.

She said the trust understood the difficulties the council faced and realised significant reductions in local authority spending were needed.

"This latest reduction of £500,000 means York Museums Trust’s income has dropped from £1.5m to £600,000 in three years, a 60 per cent cut,” she said.

She added: “York Museums Trust, like many other museums and galleries, is having to rethink the way it is run. York is fortunate to have a strong visitor base which should enable us to operate more as a cultural business than as a cultural service.

"As part of this we are looking at numerous ways to make up this funding shortfall, such as a review of charging policies, increasing venue hire and raising awareness of our charitable status to create a supporters scheme and increase individual giving.”