City library opening delayed until summer 2025

A Sainsbury's has opened in the commercial space of the building but the library doors remain shut

The opening of a new library which was due to welcome its first visitors in the summer has been delayed to 2025.

Nottingham City Council revised the opening date for the new Sherwood Library in Spondon Street to the end of 2024 after work started to remedy 130 defects in the building.

The defects included problems with a living wall, fire safety and a significant leak in the building's atrium.

However, on Friday, a spokesman for the authority told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) the library service was now "working towards an opening date of summer 2025".

'Nightmare on Spondon Street'

In September, Sam Lux, the council's executive member for leisure and culture, said she hoped the problems would be rectified within a month.

But the authority admitted problems were still persisting in October, the LDRS said.

Campaigner Des Conway branded the handling of the Sherwood Library project as the "nightmare on Spondon Street".

He added: "It means we've not had a library for four years and that's totally unacceptable."

The old library was deemed not fit for purpose in 2017 due to its poor state of repair.

By 2020, a plan was drawn up to demolish it and rebuild the library with added commercial space and housing.

The council sold the site to local developer Hockley Developments, with an agreement the library would be built at no capital cost to the authority, and that a 125-year lease would be agreed at a nominal rent.

While Sainsbury's is now open in the commercial space, the library's doors have remain closed.

The scheme's previous contractor, Dako Construction, collapsed into administration, which hampered the scheme, the LDRS said.

A new contractor was found and the building was handed back to the council at the end of 2023 for the final fit-out, when the defects were discovered.

The handling of the situation was criticised by councillors at a communities and environment scrutiny committee meeting on Wednesday.

Hockley Developments said the council's new opening date was in contradiction to what the firm had been told.

In a statement the developer said: "We cannot control when tenants move into any property – but our understanding is their interior designers aim to start their works in January."