THE Epping Forest District Museum has benefited from funding being made available through the Art Fund, the UK's leading independent art charity, which is designed to boost local collections.

The new scheme, Enriching Regions: The Art Fund Collecting Scheme, will make up to £45,000 available to museums in the east of England to help develop their collections.

Curators from museums in Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk attended the East of England launch at Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich, to hear more about the scheme and how it could help them build their collections.

Epping Forest District Museum officer Tony O'Connor said: "Support from The Art Fund has been crucial in allowing the Epping Forest District Museum to acquire a number of important pieces for the district where they form a major part of the public collection, to be enjoyed by all. We very much welcome this new funding stream and hope it will allow us to create new links with benefactors to develop our collections further."

Enriching Regions has been devised in direct response to research the Art Fund undertook earlier this year.

The Collecting Challenge: The Art Fund Museum Survey 2006 found many museums are no longer actively collecting, and that almost 70 per cent now acquire new material mainly or solely by gift.

It found that the three poorest regions in collecting terms are the East Midlands, West Midlands and the East of England, and that local authority-owned and independent museums are the types of museum that are least able to collect.

The scheme is specifically designed to assist the museums with the greatest need.