A MUSEUM which is costing Swindon Council £12,000 a week to run could have its name changed to reduce losses, the Advertiser can reveal.

This is one of a series of suggestions put forward by a cross-party council inquiry into the huge financial losses of the Steam railway museum.

Councillors have also recommended a review of staffing levels - meaning that it is unlikely that the former general manager and curator Andrew Lovett will be replaced - and a possible merger with Swindon Museum on Bath Road.

Other key recommendations in the report include improved signage - such as a motorway sign from the M4 - and the completion of long-promised landscaping work in front of the museum.

Steam opened in 2000 at a total cost of £13 million, but despite winning awards, it has struggled ever since.

Original estimates suggested it would attract 250,000 visitors a year, but the true figure has been less than 100,000 and it is heading downwards.

It had originally been expected to need £100,000 annually, but so far it has required running cost subsidies from Swindon Council totalling more than £1.3 million.

This year Steam is expected to cost the council at least £575,000 - enough on its own to add one per cent to council tax bills.

Deputy chairman of the Steam Task Group, Coun John Taylor (Lab, Central), said: "These changes are needed to resolve the financial position and clearly identify the product and the market to which we need to sell it.

"The quality of the museum is beyond question - what has to be questioned by the task group is what needs to be done in the next two years to ensure the museum has a robust future."

The group has set a target of reducing the museum deficit for the financial year of 2004/2005 to £200,000.

The following year it is aiming to reach a break-even point.

The task group report will now go to the council's main decision-making body, the cabinet, which may make further firm recommendations.

Task group chairman Coun Nick Martin (Con, Shaw and Nine Elms) said he is convinced the report will be acted upon.

He said: "There's a great deal more work to be done - it is an interim report rather than a final one.

"But this report won't be shelved - there's an all-party commitment to solve the problems of Steam.

"We want to turn it around - I doubt we will ever make Steam profitable but we want to reduce its running costs so we can spend the money we save on education and our other statutory responsibilities."

Acting general manager of Steam, Tim Bryan, said: "We are going to take on board the suggestions that have come through from the committee. There are things in the report we are going to work on.

"At the moment it is only an interim report - there's still a lot of work to be done."