NEWCASTLE’s Discovery Museum could be relocated to empty shops or a newly-built location under plans for a major overhaul of the popular attraction.

It was revealed this summer that city bosses were considering the future of the venue, with its current home said to be in a “serious state of decline”.

While a significant refurbishment of the grade II listed Blandford House is under consideration, a relocation of the science and local history museum to a new premises in the city is also an option.

A Newcastle City Council report reveals that the options being mulled over include “moving it to a space left empty through the decline in physical retail or a new build”.

The most prominent empty shopping unit in the city centre is the former Debenhams in Eldon Square. But, while it is understood that no options have been taken off the table for the future of the Discovery Museum, the shuttered department store would seem to be an unlikely option at this stage – given that the shopping centre’s majority owners revealed in September that they have received five bids from leisure firms to take over the site.

The Discovery Museum became the country’s first science museum outside London when it opened in 1934 in Exhibition Park, when it was known as the Municipal Museum of Science and Industry.