FANS of the Brentford Musical Museum have been celebrating the start of building work on its new £2.6million site.

The old sales office that stood on the site has been demolished, and the builders, Barretts, have said that they expect to be able to hand over the shell of the building in September. The scheme, which has been placed by Barretts with contractors Gilmac Construction, is projected to cost £2.6 million, including the full expenses of relocating the museum's collection and fitting out the new premises.

The collection has been temporarily housed in the redundant St George's Church, on the High Street, since 1963.

It will be reopening in the church this year for the first time since 2002, when the collection closed in anticipation of the new building being ready for occupation towards the end of last year.

However, since the shell of the building will not be ready until at least this September, and will require fully fitting out after that, which is expected to take a further six months, the Museum will be open at the church on Saturdays and Sundays from April to October.

During the partial reopening, the museum will be gauging public reaction to the proposed new style of the exhibition, as well as raising funds to help cover the cost of the project and recruiting volunteers.

A bid for a £1.8 million bid from the Heritage Lottery Fund has already been successful in Stage 1 of the application process, with a final decision from the fund expected in April or May.

The tight schedule that has been placed on the move away from St George's means that the internal walls may not even have been installed by the time that the museum starts to transfer its collection to the new building, in which case they will have to create a secure instrument storage section on the ground floor.

The museum has spent the year since it last opened by building up a photographical record of the entire collection in preparation for the move, and carrying out a complete assessment of all objects in the collection, some of which have been found to be in need of urgent repair work.

In what is hoped to be an optimistic sign for the future, these tasks have been completed successfully and within the time budgeted for them.