THE DIRECTOR leading Swindon’s bid for a new museum and art gallery has said the project won’t be consigned to history despite calls for the cultural sector to make more use of existing spaces.

Rod Hebden responded after former arts minister Ed Vaizey advocated a move away from “bricks and mortar” in favour of a more creative approach to displaying objects.

Mr Vaizey spoke in relation to a government-commissioned review suggesting public funds should be used to repair existing galleries, rather than construct new ones.

Advocates for plans to build the £22 million venue on the site of the Wyvern Theatre car park will find out in weeks if a final funding bid has been successful.

Mr Hebden, director of the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery Trust, reaffirmed his commitment to a landmark, purpose-built venue.

“The principle is right, we shouldn’t build new museums if there isn’t a case for them but museums are hugely popular,” Mr Hebden said.

“More people visit museums than go to Premier League football matches, almost three times as many. We do have an existing museum in Swindon but it’s in a small and inaccessible building that’s not fit for purpose.

“The case for building a new home for the current museum in Swindon is really strong.”

Mr Vaizey suggested world-class exhibits could even be housed in shopping centres, conjuring the prospect of a Lucian Freud hanging in the Brunel Shopping Centre, or Apsley the large stuffed crocodile given pride of place in the Designer Outlet.

Writing in Apollo magazine, he asked: “Should we use scarce resources to fund a new museum or should we use them to enhance what we already have? Objects need to come out from behind their Victorian façades and go to where people are more likely to stumble across them.”

Despite its chronic lack of display space, Swindon’s cultural treasures include one of the most highly-regarded collections of British 20th Century art outside London.

Mr Hebden will find out in April if the bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund for £12million to realise the project has been successful. If so, the venue would form part of a new cultural quarter.

“Visiting museums is still hugely popular, so moving away from them is not a sensible thing, but absolutely we should be getting our collections out to people,” Mr Hebden said.

“You can’t expect people to come to you and we should always be innovative in finding new ways of reaching new audiences.

“That’s something the museum’s already particularly good at, taking handling collections out to different groups who can’t get to museums, such as the very elderly or taking things to schools, so I think innovative ways of learning and getting heritage to people is a good idea. That is something we should be doing on top of welcoming all the millions of people who visit museums every year.”

The review, published in November, had found that many museums were “struggling to make best use of their collections due to inadequate storage and expertise”, but recommended using public funds for “investment in existing estate”.