Row over Leicester City Council’s plans for new museum cafe

Plans to create a new cafe at Leicester’s flagship museum has been dubbed a waste of money by opposition politicians.

The Labour-run city council wants to spend about £850,000 setting up the cafe at the Leicester Museum and Art Gallery in the now-closed Wild Space gallery which displayed taxidermy exhibits.

However a six-strong group of Green, Liberal Democrat and Conservative councillors have launched a move to halt the scheme, calling it “unnessesary”.

The council said the move would generate rental income from a cafe operator.

The concerned councillors have written to the council “calling-in” the cafe decision, triggering a debate about it at a scrutiny meeting on Monday.

In a report, they said: “Despite the council being in a truly diabolical financial state, the Labour leadership still appears determined to waste millions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash on ill-conceived vanity projects.

“Most sensible people would agree with us when we say that a new council cafe is not a priority, especially as the council is on the brink of bankruptcy and cannot even afford to support the adventure playgrounds or SEND transport. “

They said there had been a “perfectly good” cafe at the museum but the authority shut it down.

They added: “The Labour council must stop wasting public money on unnecessary projects like this proposed new cafe.”

A council spokesman said: “The cost of closing and refurbishing the old Wild Space gallery and moving the cafe into the space will be around £850,000.

“This will enable us to create a self-contained cafe with access from New Walk, and means we will be able to open the cafe to the public when the museum is closed, which is not currently an option.

“The bulk of the fit-out would be paid for by the chosen operator, and the council would receive income from them.”

The authority said the project was part of a wider £3.9m revamp of the Victorian musuem, jointly funded by the Arts Council, which would also reveal some of its historic rooflights and columns.