Prosper North Edition 1: West Cheshire Museums

Richard Hall from West Cheshire Museums talks to us about what he’s hoping to get out of the Prosper North programme and the importance of diversifying income streams in uncertain times.

Tell us more about West Cheshire Museums…
Our four museums cover a huge slice of Cheshire’s history and we aim to inspire communities and visitors alike by sharing with them stories about the area’s people and places, from prehistoric times to the present day.

What appeals to you about the Prosper North programme?
The attraction of being involved with Prosper North is to learn with and be inspired by others and to spend time with experts to refresh and develop our current business models.

How do you hope it will help with the challenges and opportunities your organisation faces?
West Cheshire Museums are managed by Cheshire West and Chester Council. As with most councils up and down the country, Cheshire West and Chester continues to run services with reduced budgets. One of the biggest challenges that we face in uncertain times is to safeguard our museums and collections and we can only do this by diversifying income streams. With this brings opportunities to expand our retail offer and this is an area that we hope Prosper North will help us with.

What are you hoping to achieve by the end of the programme?
To be more ambitious and innovative in how we approach income generation, (especially with retail) and to ensure that a robust strategy for this is embedded in business planning across the service.

Find out more about Prosper North and how to apply for the next edition here.