SWINDON’S Victorian technical school could be turned into a gallery for the town’s hidden collection of 20th century British art.

That’s the suggestion of council leader Rod Bluh, as an alternative to office use for the red brick building in Victoria Road.

Ashfield Land bought the former Swindon College site in 2006 and has started demolition to replace the newer part with a leisure and retail complex.

It also has planning permission to refurbish and convert the old technical school into office space and intends to do this once the new complex is finished.

But Coun Bluh said there was already a surplus in office accommodation in Swindon, so a better use for the Victorian building could be as a new home for Swindon’s art collection, providing it was financially and technically feasible.

Swindon boasts one of the most impressive and sought-after collections of 20th century British art in the country.

The 350-piece collection, which has an undisclosed value, is mainly in storage in the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery in Old Town, and includes works by Henry Moore, LS Lowry and Ben Nicholson to name but a few.

Coun Bluh said: “It’s a building we’re looking at to see if any viable uses can be considered, such as an art gallery or other civic building. I don’t know whether this building would be suitable for an art gallery because no one has done a feasibility study on it yet.

“But it’s the sort of building we would consider when looking at options, based on its presence and its location.”

He said the building was not listed and he hopes to arrange an urgent meeting with the developer to ensure something is done with it soon.

He said: “I saw inside it two years ago and it was not great. Gavin Jones (the council’s chief executive) saw it a couple of months ago and it was pretty awful. There’s a lot of water getting in, and water is the thing that kills buildings if you don’t address it.”

Peter Green, of the Back Garden, a community group concerned with issues affecting that part of Old Town, supported Coun Bluh’s vision.

“I imagine that building with lots of little studios, an interesting bar you could drift in an out of, lots of crazy exhibitions and maybe a small arts cinema. That would be fantastic,” he said.

Ian Piper, chief executive of Forward Swindon, said Union Square would deliver about 600,000 sq ft of office space, but it would have different tenants to those who might move into the technical school. He said it might be appropriate as an art gallery but more work needed to be done to determine that.

However, an Ashfield Land spokesman said there were no changes in the original plan and it had no intention of converting the building into an art gallery.

He said contractors might use the old school as office space during the project, but they still planned to convert it into permanent office space.