JOBS are to go and prices are to rise at Basingstoke's landmark Milestones museum.

Three staff have already gone and a further four are to be made redundant. Some full-time posts will also be made part-time.

The job cuts follow a fall in the number of visitors to the West Ham museum.

Entrance charges to the museum are to rise by 60p from April 1 and Saturday and Sunday opening hours will be from 11am to 5pm - a change to the current 10am to 6pm.

These measures are expected to bring an increase of £120,000 in the next financial year.

Borough council leader Brian Gurden said the museum is a victim of its own success - expanding too quickly and now having to go back to where it started.

Cllr Gurden told The Gazette: "Early last year, the number of visitors grew more rapidly than expected and more staff were taken on - but that imploded.

"Since then, with foot-and-mouth and the Government removing entry charges for the national museums in London last December, numbers have fallen. The events of September 11 also meant the loss of corporate hospitality events."

A spokeswoman for Hampshire County Council, which runs the museum jointly with Basingstoke council, said: "Milestones is not in crisis. We set our projected figures too high and are rearranging things. But the museum is very popular and successful.

"For the year end, we have an overspend for Milestones in our budget of £245,000 - but it is not really a loss."

The spokeswoman said the museum had achieved its original visitor target of 125,000 but not its revised increased figure of 174,000.

The redundancies were announced yesterday at a mass meeting of staff.