In the first of a monthly series, HADRIAN ELLORY-VAN DEKKER, the director and chief executive of the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery Trust, updates us on the progress of the bid for Swindon’s new £22m building

In 1943 Herbert James “Jimmy” Powell Bomford, a local businessman, loaned 21 works of contemporary British Art to the people of Swindon.

This was possibly a surprising but inspiring decision to have made in a time of great struggle and uncertainty. It revealed Jimmy’s real belief in the power of Art and in a positive future for Swindon. It has led, all these years later, to Swindon being the custodian of a nationally important collection of Modern British Art. This loan subsequently became a gift and these works feature prominently alongside more recent loans and donations in the latest exhibitions Modern Times: the School of London and the Bomford Gift at the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery.

I have been fortunate enough to work in some of the world’s finest and most important museums and galleries – working with the collections at the British Museum for 15 and a half years, as a visiting research fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and, most recently, for 10 years at the Science Museum as Chief Curator and Head of Collections.

Yet, in February 2017, I am leading the project to deliver a world-class new museum and gallery on the site of a former carpark in Swindon’s town centre. This, I know, seems to some to be a strange and possibly unnecessary thing to be doing. Why am I doing it? And why am I, more importantly, doing it in Swindon?

I passionately believe in the power of museums and galleries, the wonderful collections they hold, and the amazing stories that those artworks and objects tell, to make a positive impact on the lives of individuals and communities.

‘Culture’ (whatever that means to you and for many people it can mean many very different things) is often presented as being almost tantamount to a dirty word and an even more worrying concept.

Great museums and galleries can achieve great things. They helped me, a working class kid born into a struggling and troubled family in Bethnal Green in London’s East End and brought up in Tottenham, not only to be the first in my family to go to university but also to be the first to get an ‘A’ Level. Free entrance to London’s museums and galleries enabled me to change my life – not to jettison my past but to realise my potential.

Swindon should not waste the unique gift of its very special and important collection. These assets should be made to work harder for the town, its residents and its visitors.

Enabling people to grow in confidence and skills and to explore and discover. Enabling Swindon to become a destination and occupy its rightful place as a regional centre. The New Swindon Museum and Art Gallery will be a place for everyone in Swindon and become yet another real reason to visit the town. Swindon may not be Bath. It isn’t Bristol or Oxford or Reading or Exeter. Swindon is Swindon and that history and that rich and continuing story deserve to be celebrated.

Please do visit the current Museum and Art Gallery up in Old Town to explore this unique heritage and to see the concept model for the New Museum and Art Gallery – where everyone will be welcome and able to get into the building – a place where art, science, history and Swindon itself will be celebrated - an exciting space that will encourage not only every visitor but also, just possibly, Swindon itself to realise their full potential. Swindon currently has a good Museum and Art Gallery. Swindonians deserve a better and even a great one.