This is how the proposed £10 million new records office at County Hall could look.

Cash to fund the new plan - which replaces an earlier proposal that would have seen Leicestershire County Council spend £35 million on a new facility - was approved in this year’s budget.

The brand new purpose built facility will house Leicestershire’s records office which needs to relocate because it’s running out of space at it’s current Wigston base.

It will be to the right of County Hall as people enter the main reception area and will offer 20 years worth of records space.

The new office could be neighboured by a facility to keep and display some of the one million artefacts and items owned by the county.

A further £3 million would be required to adapt the existing Eastern Annexe building but that would see the five sites currently used to store the county’s extensive collection - which include pieces relating to fashion and design, art, national history, home and family life - reduced.

Speaking about the original plan, Councillor Richard Blunt, lead member for adults and communities, said: “Spending that amount of money would be the wrong thing to do.

“Work has continued with other solutions.”

The £35 million plan was expected to save around £350,000 per year but the latest report says the split site option ‘does not provide the same opportunity to generate the revenue savings as per the original business case’.

Museums service staff welcome the proposals for a hub, which they say would make the collections more accessible to the public and increase the amount of people they could show around and make the service more effective.

Franne Wills said: “As the team gets smaller it gets more difficult to manage the collection across the current sites.

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“If we were able to store things across one or two sites it would be a lot easier.

“We’re excited that this is a discussion taking place at this time because we recognise the financial pressures local authorities are under.

“We need fit for purpose buildings so we can do this job as well as we can.

“The records office needs more space, our other collections would also benefit from more space.

“What’s proposed looks like it would work effectively on both levels.”

Treasure trove: The Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland, in Long Street, Wigston Magna.

But not everyone was on board with the plans.

Councillor Linda Broadley, who represents North Wigston, where the current records office is based, said that moving the documents to County Hall was not the answer.

She said: “I accept that the building it is in is not right for it now but here [County Hall] it’s not accessible to anyone.

“Car parking is horrendous, it won’t encourage anyone to come here, there won’t be any more parking spaces created and it’s already busy enough without bringing this over here as well.

“I’m sure there is a more suitable place somewhere in the county.

“The county council own land in lots of places, there must be somewhere else.

“The service is fantastic, I have no objections to that.”

Councillor Hilary Fryer, who visited one of the county’s collections facilities, before the meeting, said: “Wherever the service moves to there will be problems with parking, transport.

“Getting to Wigston from where I live in Barrow is not easy.

“County Hall does have it’s problems but it is easy to get to in many ways. I don’t where we could build it so that everyone could get to it.

“This collection belongs to the public, not to us, we are the guardians.

“We’ve got to make it accessible, we’ve go to encourage people to see it.”

More than 140,000 people visited exhibitions hosted by the county council in 2018.