Swindon Museum and Art Gallery move nearly £100k over budget

Swindon Museum and Art Gallery was based at Apsley House until 2020

The conversion of the upper storey of a council office into an art gallery and museum is nearly £100,000 over budget.

Swindon Museum and Art Gallery closed its doors at Apsley House in 2020 and is being moved to Swindon Borough Council's offices in Euclid Street.

The original budget was £400,000 but it is now expected to cost £493,000.

Cabinet member for finance, Kevin Small, said the overspend had been caused by works "not foreseen at the outset" and a rise in prices.

It is expected to reopen later in spring.

Work to convert the upper floor of Swindon's council offices should be completed later in spring

Mr Small told a cabinet meeting: "The £400,000 budget for the project was set before we knew that the museum and gallery would be hosted here at this building and that it would be for renovations at Apsley House."

In his report, he said: "The overspend is due to separate smaller packages of work, the costs of which were not foreseen at the outset, including additional decoration, lighting and power requirements, meeting conditions related to the building's listed status and stoppages related to the registry office, alongside a general above-expected rise in prices."

Most of the money needed to cover the overspend will come from a £60,000 underspend on a new audio-visual system at Swindon Steam Museum, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The remaining £33,000 will be taken from the daily revenue budget allocated to museums.

Councillor Marina Strinkovsky, who has been overseeing the move, admitted "there have been issues".

"This is a council office building, so it hasn't had much maintenance for the last 20 years at all, and we kept finding problems - but I have to say that the contractors have been excellent," she added.