The new home for Swindon’s collection of art and artefacts at the borough council’s Civic Offices in Euclid Street will not be ready as early as originally hoped.

Work on converting the upper storey into a gallery and museum had been delayed and will not be ready by the end of April as originally hoped, owing to increasing costs for the conversion work.

The authority’s cabinet member for leisure, heritage and culture Matty Courtliff told members of the scrutiny committee that it should be ready by the end of the year.

And he told councillors that Apsley House, the listed Regency building which housed the town’s collection until recently was closed because of a combination of repair costs and accessibility issues.

Labour Old Town councillor Marina Strinkovsky asked: “It’s hard to get a coherent narrative about why Apsley House was closed.

At a meeting for residents, the reason given for not re-opening it was because of the needed repairs, and that no repairs had been done while it was closed during lockdowns or for years before.

“Now your report says it was closed because of accessibility issues, which is strange especially now because the collection is being moved to this building which also isn’t accessible, and now we learn will take longer to open.”

But Coun Courtliff said it all made sense: “It is coherent. The building wasn’t accessible and there were major repairs needed.

“If you look at the recent parish council report it would have needed £1m of repairs and it just wouldn’t have been financially prudent to spend money on repairs to a building which will; never be properly accessible.”

Coun Strinkovsky said she feared the originally mooted proposal to build a new gallery and museum as part of the cultural quarter regeneration of the Kimmerfields area was quietly being dropped. She said: “When can we tell the people of Swindon that we will have a permanent home for what is a remarkable collection for a town this size?”

Coun Courtliff said a new gallery and museum was still in the plans for the cultural quarter, but he also gave his personal opinion that the Civic Offices would be a fine permanent home for the museum and gallery.

He said: “This building will have a lift to allow everyone to come in and get to the galleries, so it will be properly accessible, and in my opinion, this is an excellent display space. I think it would be a great permanent display space.”