THE long-running dispute over where the town's central library should be built will be resolved by the New Year, according to the leader of Swindon Council.

Mike Bawden has pledged to end the saga, which has been rumbling on for more than 30-years.

The town's current library is housed in a temporary building in Regent Circus and Coun Bawden has maintained that finding a new site is the council's number one priority this year.

The Conservative councillor for Lawns and Old Town said: "I hope a decision about exactly where the central library and art gallery should go will be resolved by the end of the calendar year and certainly by the end of the council year.

"I think we can count out the Mechanics' Institute because it's the wrong place, the building isn't suitable for a library and the council's technical officers want a purpose built state-of-the-art library and art gallery under one roof."

The issue has been a source of embarrassment to Swindon since the early 1970s when plans to build a new central library next to the Wyvern Theatre were first discussed.

Since then Islington Street, Sanford Street, Regent Circus, the Mechanics' and most recently the Brunel Centre have been named as possible venues.

Earlier this year the Advertiser revealed that Westfield, the development company responsible for the multi-million pound regeneration of the Brunel Centre, might build a central library as part of its plans.

Any hopes that the authority now has of building a new library hinge on juggling other financial commitments such as the sale of the Barnfield Road depot and recycling centre, the headquarters of Swindon Services, which is in turn dependent on the £3.9m purchase of a new site on Cheney Manor Industrial Estate.