THE new museum and art gallery is a vanity project for “elite snobs”, a UKIP council candidate said.

Martin Costello, who is standing in Liden, Eldene and Park South in this week’s local elections, described proposals for Swindon’s new cultural centrepiece as a “posh, arty-farty gallery for elite snobs”.

He was holding a campaigning day in the town centre and made the comments while giving a speech to camera.

He said: “Just across the road from the site of the proposed gallery, there’s a group of homeless people living in tents, and this is morally wrong.

“We must get our priorities in order. We must stop this vanity project.”

He said there was “real pain and suffering on the streets” and he thought the £5m of council funding earmarked for the museum and art gallery would be better spend elsewhere.

The caption in the video reads: “Costello demands council invest in NHS not posh art gallery.”

It was last week revealed that the result of the £12m bid for Heritage Lottery funding for the gallery will not be announced until after this Thursday’s election.

The HLF confirmed that waiting until after an election to announce the result of a project such as this was “standard practice”.

But Mr Costello has been a vociferous critic of the plans even before the HLF bid was formally submitted in November.

He added: “I feel your pain and I will fight for you, my fellow Swindonians.”