Weymouth Museum may not transfer to the new town council after all – mainly because it could end up being be too much of a liability for the new authority.

It was originally proposed that the museum and its artefacts should come under the new Weymouth Town Council when it starts work next year.

But borough councillors heard on Monday that the museum may be better off with the new Dorset Council when it starts in April 2019 – because it will have officers with expertise in museums and historic collections and the bigger council would also stand a better chance of finding a new home for the museum should it be needed.

The meeting heard that this might include using a Weymouth town centre hotel as a new home, should the need arise.

The museum’s senior trustee spoke in favour of the proposal to come under the new Dorset Council at Monday’s borough council management committee.

Museum chair of trustees Marcia Headon said there was: “ A high possibility that we might require considerable expenditure in the future.” She said she was not confident of the museum being able to stay at Brewer’s Quay in the long term.

Borough leader Cllr Jeff Cant agreed that the museum may have to eventually move out of the former brewery building in Hope Square – leaving the headache of where to house the extensive collection which he said, would need a space the size of supermarket, about 3,000 square feet.

He said that if that happened, the extent of the problem could cause major problems for the new council.

Committee members heard that the amount of material currently on display at the museum amounted to about three per cent of that it owned, with most of the rest in store.

“We can’t, and shouldn’t, ask the Weymouth Town Council to take responsibility. It will overwhelm them with the costs,” said Mr Cant.

He said would be better to go to the new unitary council which will have the expertise and, by next year, also a number of Weymouth assets, including the borough council owned hotels, which could provide a new home.

Cllr Alison Reed said that although there were worries about transferring the town’s historical items to the new council amongst councillors at a recent closed meeting there was also concern about the estimated £25,000 a year cost of storing the collection.

She said that problems with Brewer’s Quay development was the amount of time being spent trying to overcome the problems of the official ‘listing’ of items which could not be altered without special permission.

“A solution to that has to be found so that the developers can fulfil their promise to build and house the museum within Brewer’s Quay,” she said.

She said the Museum also needed to tackle the problem of what it had, and what it needed to keep: “There is an argument which says the collection should be properly curated and the things which don’t fit, perhaps, given to somewhere where they would.”

The debate came during a discussion about the transfer of assets from Weymouth and Portland Borough council to the new town council.

Councillors heard that the talking is still far from over – the subject will come back to the borough’s management committee and full council in January for a final recommendation which will then need to be considered by the shadow executive committee at its first meeting of the New Year.