THE cafe at Swindon's Steam museum will close on Sunday, leaving the museum without any refreshment facilities.

The cafe is on a balcony overlooking the reception, and is currently run under contract by Swindon Services.

The contract for catering at the museum runs out on Monday and Swindon Services will not be renewing it.

After that date, the museum will be looking for other companies to take over the catering contract. Until then the cafe remains closed.

Coun David Cox (Lab, Toothill and Westlea), lead member for Culture and Healthy Living, confirmed the closure.

He had little doubt that visitor numbers had much to do with it, saying: "I think that when they planned Steam with cafe facilities, they may have gone a little over the top with providing so many different meals and refreshments."

"I think many people just like to have a coffee after walking around a museum. That might have put people off. Other visitors might have decided to wait that little bit longer and eat in the Outlet Village.

"I don't think that this is a bad omen for the museum. Steam is just one small part of a jigsaw that is slowly being put together. I think that once all the development work is completed around the Railway Works we will see it bloom."

Coun Nick Martin (Con, Shaw and Nine Elms), chairman of the scrutiny commission, said: "It is clear that the cafe has been running at a loss or deficit for some time. But I feel it is far more important for the museum to balance its books first.

"I suspect that any closure will be for the short term. An alternative might be to bring the tables down into the reception and then bring in drinks, sweets and sandwich machines."

The museum was opened in June 2000, and it was expected that around 200,000 people would pass through the doors each year. However the figure is less than half that number. A task group is holding regular meetings to discuss ways of attracting more visitors.

The cafe's funding has been questioned before, in February 2002.

One of the options to help reduce Steam's expenditure was to hand over the running of the museum's cafe to Swindon Services on a no fee, no subsidy basis in the hope that it would save around £10,000 on the cafe alone as part of an attempt to save £240,000 a year.

The cafe sold a variety of refreshments including light lunches, cakes, Danish pastries and hot and cold drinks for visitors to the museum.

Despite the lower than expected numbers of visitors, the museum has been well used by schools.

This week the museum has been packed full of young visitors from schools across the South West enjoying the We'll Meet Again event, which focuses on life during the Second World War.

A spokesman for Swindon Services said: "As the council's contracting arm, Swindon Services could not continue to run the cafe at a loss and we regret having to close it.

"All affected staff will be offered alternative employment or redundancy."