THE Oxfordshire Museum could be run by an independent trust after council bosses launched a review of its future.

The review will look at new ways for Oxfordshire County Council to fund and organise the museum service, using £76,050 awarded to it by the Arts Council yesterday.

It came as Ed Vaizey, the former Culture Minister, called for the county's museums to be ran at "an arm's length" so they would no longer be "tied up in council bureaucracy".

The Wantage MP said: "A museum is a visitor attraction that should be run by someone who knows what they're doing, in terms of attracting the public and giving them what they want, and should not be getting second-guessed by council officers.

"All over the country, I saw museums that want to be more fleet of foot get tied up in council bureaucracy and waiting for decisions that are overlaid with local politics.

"That is completely ridiculous, so I would encourage Oxfordshire to put its museums service into a trust at arm's-length."

The museum service celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.

As well as the county museum in Woodstock, it also runs a storage centre in Standlake, Bishop's Palace in Witney and Swalcliffe Barn near Banbury.

The museum in Woodstock hosts some of the county's most important artefacts, including a rare Iron Age mirror found in Didcot.

Lorraine Lindsay-Gale, the county council's cabinet member for culture and property, said the review could consider "all options".

She added: "What we hope this review will do is develop the service so that it will be in fit shape for the next 50 years.

"Spinning out museums to trusts is one option we will be looking at, it is something we have previously done with Cogges Manor Farm in Witney.

"At the moment we are very open-minded."

Mrs Lindsay-Gale said there was also a need to address issues in Standlake, where the storage facility is expected to be full within the next 18 months.

This was due to the large number of new developments in the county resulting in archaeological surveys, she added.

The councillor said: "Oxfordshire is a historic county with wonderful artefacts and stories to tell and one thing we want to do is make sure more of them are available for the public to see.

"If things are found and excavated they eventually end up with us, but we are running out of space and Standlake, so we either need to look at expanding that facility or try to disseminate more of what we have to other museums across the county.

"We want to get more of our history out there where people can see it."

Talks were ongoing with Oxford City Council about displaying more artefacts at the City of Oxford Museum, she said. Libraries could also host more displays.