City of Greater Bendigo councillors questioned the immediate need for a new museum in Bendigo during Wednesday night’s council meeting.

Historical societies and heritage groups have called for the Bendigo Law Courts to be turned into a museum of goldfields history once the courts are relocated to another site.

But council will instead allocate funding in the 2019/20 financial year for a feasibility study into finding more storage space for the estimated 45,000 artefacts kept by historical societies, and thousands more in council and private collections.

Once space is confirmed, then it will move on to a museum feasibility study but that could be years down the track.

Councillor Matt Emond said ensuring there was adequate storage space was a greater priority than setting up a new museum in Bendigo.

“There is a myth out there at the moment that Bendigo doesn’t have a museum. I do find it quite perplexing,” he said.

“I know there’s a lot of passion and a lot of talk about a museum. The museum itself is only the front end of the shop, it’s everything else that you’ve got to put in place before you reach that point.

“The Bendigo Art Gallery for example only exhibits 5 per cent of its entire collection. The rest is in storage.”

Related: TAFE picked as preferred site for Bendigo Law Courts

Cr Emond said it was misleading to say Bendigo did not have a dedicated museum, pointing to the Golden Dragon Museum, Bendigo Pottery interpretive museum, Soldiers Memorial Institute, the upcoming Aspire Foundation precinct, the post office gallery and the new Indigenous curator for the Bendigo Art Gallery.

Councillors discussed the museum idea while endorsing a strategic report on the city’s historical artefacts.

The report was in response to concerns from historical societies about a lack of a coordinated approach to collecting and storing artefacts, which placed important items at risk of being lost in the future if groups cease to operate.

The council is currently auditing its historic and heritage objects.

Cr Andrea Metcalf said a lot of work needed to be done before a museum could be considered.

“There is a real need for storage to protect the artefacts and I think this needs to be a high priority for the City of Greater Bendigo,” she said.

“The need for a museum has to be considered, but for me a storage facility is a higher priority.”

Cr Rod Fyffe likened the call for a museum to “putting the cart before the horse” without first putting place a coherent collection and storage policy.

Bendigo Heritage Attractions chairman Wayne Gregson has criticised councillor comments questioning the need for a new museum, saying the city needed to make the most of the upcoming availability of the law courts.

Mr Gregson helped to campaign for the historical artefacts storage facility on Nolan Street several decades ago, a project he said was built only half as big as it needed to be.

He said extending the facility should be a priority, but it should not impact the push to establish a general history museum.

Related: Bullets in Bendigo Law Courts highlight safety fears

“All we’re saying is that if the law courts become available – which is more than likely to happen – we would like to be considered as the end user,” Mr Gregson said.

“We’re not saying that the council needs to put money up front.

“The way they pitched it last night, it was obtuse.

“The storage and the museum are not the same discussion.”

Bendigo Historical Society president Jim Evans said they had been pushing for a general history museum since 1935 and the law courts presented the best opportunity to turn that into a reality.

He said past councils had failed to adequately act on reports which recommended greater storage and it appeared the issue was being kicked down the road once again.

“Saying that Bendigo already has museums – this furphy has gone around for years,” Mr Evans said.

“We must be the only city in the world without a general history museum.”

Court Services Victoria is believed to be in support of relocating the courts to another site in the CBD and to have a museum as the end user for the Pall Mall building. The legal community – highlighted by Supreme Court Justice Jack Forrest – wants the law courts moved to a new purpose-built building at the corner of Mundy and Hargreaves street, currently part of the TAFE campus.

The plans are still reliant on state government support.

The former School of Mines on McCrae Street is another potential site for the museum.

Have you signed up to the Bendigo Advertiser's daily newsletter and breaking news emails? You can register below and make sure you are up to date with everything that's happening in central Victoria.