Strike threat fuels museum crisis

The British Museum is in crisis. On top of a £6.5 million black hole in the accounts, one of the three greatest museums in the world now faces the possibility of its staff going on strike.

Workers are threatening to walk out over plans to axe 150 jobs from the museum's 1,100 staff, a drastic but urgent costcutting measure.

A union which represents museum workers, Prospect, has warned that the job cuts will put the global reputation of the British Museum at risk.

And the Public and Commercial Services union warned of the "dire need for the Government to provide financial assistance" to the museum. Any strike would be likely to take place in mid-June.

It is a far cry from the opening of the museum's £100 million Great Court redevelopment 18 months ago. With its spectacular glass roof it was the largest building project at the museum for 150 years.

Now the British Museum finds itself in dire financial straits because successive governments have cut its annual subsidies, which cover running costs, by 30 per cent.

In the past other museums were able to generate money with admission charges but the British Museum upheld the principle of free admission.

Its two rivals in the world league of great museums, the Louvre in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, both charge.

To make matters worse for the British Museum the foot-and-mouth epidemic and the 11 September attacks devastated tourism.

While overall visitor numbers to the museum went up, those from abroad dropped by a quarter, and it is the dollar-rich American visitor, perhaps on a once-in-a-lifetime tour of Europe, who spends in the museum shops, not Londoners dropping in for a casual visit.

This combination of events has put in jeopardy the future of one of the country's most important cultural centres. Unless something is done soon, the crisis could become a disaster.