Museum visitor numbers soar

The promise of culture for free lured significantly more visitors than usual to the five London museums that dropped admission charges this weekend - with one venue reporting at least a 1,000 extra visitors.

Roy Clare, director of the National Maritime Museum, said: "I was in the museum on Saturday and we appeared to have around 1,000 more people than the 1,000 to 1,500 who normally visit in a day. Just from this weekend it is clear that a lot of local people who would not have spent the £7.50 entrance were taking the chance to visit for free."

Despite this encouraging start, however, Mr Clare has only suspended entrance fees - not abolished them as the Government would like. He said: "We believe that our duty is to consider the vitality and sustainability of this museum beyond the life of one or two parliaments."

At the Science Museum, a spokeswoman said: "The first reports are we've had double the usual amount of visitors for a weekend at this time of year. Also we have seen an increase in the use of paying facilities, so it seems that people are happy to pay extras, like a few pounds for their children to use simulators, because they have paid nothing to enter the museum."

The Imperial War Museum's director of public services, Christopher Dowling, said: "We have had around 2,500 visitors on Saturday, which is more than usual - but nothing spectacular. We didn't expect any spectacular increase however because it takes a while for word to get round."

The V&A, which went free before the other museums to coincide with the opening of its new British Galleries, has seen visitor numbers rocket from 20,000 a week to 53,000 a week.