The new rules means several regional museums are adopting 'annual memberships'. The Tank Museum, Bovington

New changes to the government’s Gift Aid rules have prompted several museums to adopt an innovative way of charging for admissions.

Regional museums like The Tank Museum in Bovington, Historic Dockyards Chatham and The Vale and Downland Museum in Wantage are among the fist museums to offer ‘annual memberships’ to visitors rather than individual admission tickets.

Gift Aid is tax relief on money given to UK charities and under the new rules, which came into effect on April 1 2006, museums that offer yearly tickets can continue to benefit from the scheme.

The rules allow venues to charge for special events on five days a year, but on all other days visitors with the tickets can come and go as they please.

Local people will be able to make repeat visits to the Historic Dockyards at Chatham and only pay once. © Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust

“This offer gives our visitors unprecedented value for money,” said Nik Hunt, General and Operations Manager for the Tank Museum.

“Visitors will now be able to browse our globally unique and extensive collections at their own pace without feeling overwhelmed,” he added.

“We have also gone to this system,” said Bill Ferris, Chief Executive of Chatham Historic Dockyard and Chairman of the Association of Independent Museums. “What some of us have done is that we charge a flat rate that allows annual admissions and that allows us to claim 28p in the pound,” he explained.

“For organisations like ours that are very much a part of the community it gives a lot of spin-off benefits, especially for people who live locally who can now visit us as many times as they like.”