New Libraries for Manchester

The City of Manchester, often historically credited as one of the first free public library services, has taken the exciting decision to redevelop its library service across the city.

A major investment in the city's library service is to get the go-ahead following a budget report from Manchester City Council, in which libraries are set out as a priority.

The investment will see a large-scale refurbishment of the Grade II* Central Library to offer exciting new library and archive services and to create a state-of-the-art lending library. Mirroring similar whole-City approaches in Seattle and Singapore, Manchester will also fund a five-year development plan to relocate or refurbish all community libraries right across the city.

Manchester Central Library, one of the city's best-loved buildings and the third busiest library in the UK will be sympathetically restored as part of a wider programme of upgrades to the Town Hall complex, improving services and investing in key civic buildings and spaces.

The refurbished library, due to open in 2013, will also feature a new Archive Centre of Excellence to celebrate and showcase Manchester's rich heritage bringing together the collections of a number of archives from across Greater Manchester along with the North West Film Archive and the BFI Mediatheque.

In addition to Central Library, a brand new community lending library for the city centre will be created in the neighbouring Town Hall extension offering around-the-clock branch library facilities for city centre residents, integrated with a Council Customer Service Centre.

City Library is now open on Deansgate, offering a range of services while Central Library is closed.

The investment laid out in the budget will also enable the city council to continue with the city-wide programme, which is already underway.

Completion of the first phase of work has seen new library developments at the The Forum Library in Wythenshawe and North City Library in Harpurhey.

The second phase of the plan is now nearly complete, with brand new libraries in Longsight,  Moss Side Powerhouse, Beswick and Brooklands. The Avenue Library (Higher Blackley/Charlestown) will open its doors in 2012.

Councillor Mike Amesbury, Executive Member for Culture and Leisure said: "The budget announcement is a major vote of confidence for our library strategy, which will now see the replacement, improvement or refurbishment of every community library in the city within five years. This is fantastic news for the people of Manchester with whom the city's libraries are extremely popular - the number of people joining the library is increasing every year, more books are being borrowed and customers tell us they really like the increased opening hours. These plans are extremely exciting and give us an excellent opportunity to redesign and develop our library services for the twenty-first century."