£100k exhibition fails to pull in visitors at Cannock museum

A total of 33,796 people went to the Valley Road heritage venue between April last year and March this year - 237 less than the previous 12 months.

January, February and March of this year were the poorest performing months with 6,182 visitors in the entire quarter.

While museum attendances are only slightly down on the previous year, it had been hoped they would be boosted by the new Mining Memories exhibition introduced last August thanks to a £97,600 grant from Heritage Lottery.

Despite the unveiling of the attraction drawing in crowds on the day it failed to sustain visitors throughout the year and the museum fell well short of its annual target of 37,500 visitors.

Bosses at Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust, which runs the venue, have expressed disappointment at the figures.

But they said plans were in place to develop the museum in a bid to attract more people.

Earlier this year the trust secured funds to enhance its security measures which will allow the museum to display the Staffordshire Moorlands Pan.

Bosses hope the 2nd Century AD Roman artefact - a souvenir from Hadrian's Wall - will bring more visitors in this year.

A spokesman said: "Performance has been disappointing particularly given

the investment in the new coal mining exhibition at the site.

"The team have developed an improvement plan to reverse this trend during 2015/16."