THE director of one of Swindon’s most successful modern-day cultural institutions has urged critics and supporters of a new museum and gallery to avoid allowing their differences to divide them.

Some opponents of the ambitious project, which would see a £22m state of the art building erected on the site of the former Wyvern Theatre car park, have argued that it is being pursued at the cost of the town’s existing heritage assets.

But Matt Holland, the director of the Swindon Festival of Literature, says he believes that the two camps’ aims are not mutually exclusive.

Now in its 24th year, the festival has proven that whatever the naysayers might claim about Swindon being devoid of culture, nothing could be further from the truth.

Speaking after today's public engagement event at which Swindon was urged to get behind the new proposals, Matt said that disagreement need not divide the people of the town irreconcilably.

“In times of division and disagreement, it is the most civilized and constructive thing we can do, talk and really listen to one another,” he said.

“Especially if much of that division is based on rumour and misinformation, not facts.”

Organising the Festival of Literature over the years, in venues - old and new - right across Swindon, has furnished Matt with more than a few facts that he believes those at the heart of the museum and gallery debate might do well to consider.

“Twenty years ago, Melvyn Bragg came to the Swindon Festival of Literature and asked what the wooden huts were near the Town Hall,” he explained.

“They were the Central Library, and not a place where visiting authors were usually taken.

“Now, where the huts once stood, we have a new and beautiful prize-winning library and numerous authors appear there happily, at the festival, every year.

“During the last 10 years of the festival, Glastonbury’s Michael Eavis has appeared at The Platform, the rail workers’ old chapel, now a lovely performance venue.

“In Steam’s Great Western Hall, we have had David Attenborough talking to hundreds of Festival of Literature followers, from Swindon and as far away as Edinburgh.

“Both authors and audiences loved the events at these venues.

“All this by way of saying that both new striking buildings, like the Central Library, and old historic ones, like the Platform and the Great Hall, have been enjoyed and admired by many visiting authors and audiences.

“Both kinds of buildings serve the town well and enhance its reputation.

“If opposing sides in this new versus old buildings debate are to be brought together to recognise this, it is important that people receive reassurances that the building of a new museum and art gallery does not preclude the development and use of some of the town’s older buildings for future activities to which they might be suited.

“Surely, to help make Swindon a better place, it need not be either/or, old or new. It can be both.”

Chairman of trustees for the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery Trust, Robert Hiscox, has promised that the new building would offer a great deal more than just a shell in which to put on exhibitions.

“This isn’t just a place to hang art and display collections,” he told a packed house at New College on Wednesday.

“I seriously believe it will give a throbbing heart to Swindon that you can all be proud of.

“There isn’t a building built in England that hasn’t been opposed by people, but if you build a beautiful building here it really will make a measurable difference.”