YOU will have to pay £5 this summer, and maybe every summer, to visit the ‘jewel in Bournemouth’s crown’.

The council is introducing the admission fee for the Russell Cotes Arts Gallery and Museum – but has been accused of ‘shooting itself in the foot’.

The charges will be piloted for three months from July 5.

If they are a success, they will be made permanent for six months from April to September 2012 – so residents can still visit for free outside the tourist season.

The Russell-Cotes is a Grade II* listed building on the East Cliff that councillors often call the ‘jewel in Bournemouth’s crown’.

It is a miniature stately home with a collection of Victorian Art and ethnic artefacts, assembled by a former mayor and his wife.

Cllr Anne Rey, leader of the independent group, said: “If we want to encourage people to visit, those prices should be brought down.

“People are used to using it for free. I think we are going to shoot ourselves in the foot.”

Children aged five to 16 will pay £4 and a family ticket will cost £15.

Cllr Phil Stanley Watts, a museum supporter, said: “These charges are not encouraging young people to come to museums.”

Its famous paintings include Venus Verticordia by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. BBC presenter Jeremy Paxman filmed part of a TV series about art there in 2008 and said it was a ‘feast’.

The council stressed that it offers “value for money compared to other local cultural and leisure attractions.”

Fees quoted include £6.50 for Dorset County Museum, £11 for Monkey World, £9.25 for the Bournemouth Oceanarium, and £3.50 for the Priests House Museum at Wimborne.

The fees include an optional Gift Aid donation. If a visitor decided not to pay this, the adult price would be £4.54.

A spokesman for Bournemouth Tourism said: “We don’t believe that the charge for entry to the Russell Cotes Art Gallery and Museum will be a major barrier for the particular market that visit the attraction.”

The museum has lost 23 per cent of the £784,000 it got from the council in 2007/08.

Funding from the Renaissance in the Regions Scheme has also dropped by 29 per cent during the same time, from a peak of £481,000, and will cease in 2012/13.

Visitor numbers are forecast to drop from 45,000 to only 12,000 during the first six months of charging.

The council says that with no admission charge, the museum generates £37,000 over the peak six months from donations and the café and shop.

Charging is predicted to generate £59,000, with £50,000 of that coming direct from the admission fee.

The report says: “The real economic benefit of charging admission is in the medium to long term as visitor numbers increase.

“A 15 per cent increase to a level of around 20,000 visitors could generate approximately £82,000.”

The museum had a small admission charge from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s.