THE recommended path for the future management of Witney’s Cogges manor farm Museum is with the Cogges Community Enterprise Group, under a newly set-up charitable trust.

At its meeting next Tuesday, Oxfordshire County Council’s cabinet is being urged to go for the scheme put forward by the group – the cheapest option open. It would require £320,000 of council taxpayers’ money spread over two years – in effect, though, down to £240,000, because £80,000 has already been committed in the council’s budgeting.

If accepted, the scheme would take over the museum in April 2010.

The enterprise group bid was one of three received by the project board set up by the county council as the museum owners, to steer a future for the ailing site, which had been making losses of £250,000 a year.

The two other bids are from commercial companies. One, which already operates a number of heritage attractions, wants a cash investment of up to £1.5m from the council.

The other, from a company operating an environmental centre in the Midlands, asked for a council subsidy of £480,000, spread over three years.

The two companies have not been named.

The business plan drawn up by the enterprise group also indicated it might need up to £50,000 a year in council subsidy after the initial two years of cash input.

But John Jackson, the county’s director for social and community services, has not included this in his report and recommendations to the cabinet next week.

Instead, he has suggested an extra £150,000 towards capital improvements at the site, money which must be matched by funding from elsewhere, possibly the Lottery Fund.

It has taken just over a year for the council to be given a clear path for the way ahead after the possibility of closing Cogges Museum was raised last October.

A review then concluded that the council could not justify incurring losses of £250,000 a year, and the project board was tasked to find a management alternative.

Martyn Brown, heritage and arts officer, said: “Although as a group the enterprise group have no track record of managing a site, individually they have many skills and attributes.

“It has considerable fundraising expertise, and, as a community group, it is most likely to be successful at raising money externally.”

Mr Jackson has ruled out the idea of mothballing the site which would, in any case, cost £55,000 a year in maintenance and security.

Final figures show that visitor numbers this year topped 30,000, an increase of 20 per cent.

School visits were up, and the sale of 650 season tickets, at reduced rates, was much higher than previous years.