Work will start next month on a major refurbishment scheme for Barrow Library which will deliver a range of improvements to the building.
Cumbria County Council is investing £1.2m in the exciting project which will make the library building more accessible to the public, open up existing space within the library and develop it into a key customer hub to benefit the entire community.
The county council has appointed Thomas Armstrong as the main contractor for the project. Work is scheduled to start on site on Monday 2 December 2019 and is expected to last for 40 weeks.
The project will involve reconfiguring work which will enable the whole building to be fully used, with approx. 200 square metres of currently unusable space becoming available upstairs.
Key elements of the refurbishment work include:
- Enabling the old museum room to be used and open to the public by refurbishing the lift and installing a fire escape.
- Opening up currently unused space to create additional rooms for both community and county council use.
- New specialist Changing Places toilet facilities on the ground floor.
- New multi-purpose room on the ground floor which can be used by the library, wider community and council.
- Knocking through into the archive centre to enable better access to this key service.
Tracey Ingham, Area Manager for Barrow, Cumbria County Council, said: “We’re thrilled work is starting on this major £1.2m project to refurbish and improve Barrow Library. A lot of work has gone into planning for this project which will make a huge difference to the facilities we can offer to the local community.
“The library and archives service will remain open with business as normal for the vast majority of time throughout the refurbishment works although we anticipate that the building will need to close for about a week towards the end of the project so our contractors can finish mechanical and electrical works. There will inevitably be some disruption while the refurbishment takes place and we would like to thank people for their patience and understanding during this period.”
