Museum campaigners want Swindon to be first in queue for Government funding

Campaigners for the re-opening of Swindon Museum and Art Gallery are urging Swindon Borough Council to be first in the queue for the Chancellor’s budget promise of £850m for museums.

Save our Museum and Art Gallery (SoMAG) says the council has turned down opportunities to bid for museums funding as recently as this year, despite claiming that the Grade II listed Apsley House is in dire need of substantial repairs and renovations. 

A spokesperson for SoMAG said: “The council’s current plan is to patch up Apsley House and sell it off to the highest bidder, and to keep the cash for the unknown number of years it will take for the planned Cultural Quarter to be built in the centre of town. 

"That cash apparently will play a crucial part in financing any new museum and art pavilion. You don’t have to be an accountant to see that with inflation running at around four per cent, and interest rates at an all-time low, that sum will substantially diminish in real value over a decade or two. 

“The Chancellor says over 100 regional museums and libraries will be renovated, restored and revived. We implore Swindon Borough Council to bid for a share of the £850m, to make sure that Swindon Museum and Art Gallery is one of those 100-plus museums, and to start putting in applications for the other funding streams that regularly come available, so that it can ‘breathe life’ into Apsley House, instead of flogging it off to heaven knows who. 

“South Swindon Parish Council has approached the council with an offer to take over running the museum and art gallery at Apsley House, and to act as its guardian until the cultural quarter is built, so the council can be free from having to look after it. Once the new museum and art pavilion are built, the parish council will then hand Apsley House back to Swindon Borough Council who can sell it should they still wish. Given the historic trend for property to increase over the long term, that is going to be far more lucrative for the Swindon tax payer than getting rid of it now.

“Put bluntly, this is a choice between keeping our fantastic art collection and museum artefacts in one venue until they have a permanent new home, or putting a treasured Swindon building into private hands and risking it joins the ranks of the Corn Exchange, Mechanics Institute and Oasis. We hope that Swindon Borough Council does the right thing by the people of Swindon.”