Progress on new £15m library expected by Christmas

Project manager Verity Bennett said having the library in the town centre should boost membership and footfall

A library will be relocated to a town centre by Christmas, the team behind the project have said.

A total of £15.1m is being spent on turning the former Argos shop in King's Lynn into a library and adult education facility.

The building was acquired by Norfolk County Council in 2021 but the Covid-19 pandemic delayed the renovation.

Project manager Verity Bennett, who has been working on the renovation ever since, described the scheme as her "extra baby".

It was originally scheduled to open in the autumn.

Norfolk County Council promises the building will look like this (visible on the right)

Ms Bennett hopes the central location will mean more people use the library, something she said had happened in Great Yarmouth.

"It's a beautiful part of town, lots of footfall. You don't have to come and read a book or do anything in particular. Just come and use the space."

Jeannine de Souza, who is assistant director in construction and facilities management at the council, said the building had excellent environmental credentials - including solar panels and a state of the art heating system.

She said the project had been full of surprises: "One day the team rang me and said 'We've hit wood. We're metres down below the ground we shouldn't be hitting wood'."

After stopping to consult old maps it was found they had been digging out the old river bed and their drill had hit what the team believed was an old boat.

Ms de Souza said archaeologists were consulted before they continued.

The building housed an Argos shop on the ground floor, a two-storey car park and a nightclub on the top floor

The Conservative leader of Norfolk County Council, Kay Mason Billig, said the building would be "more than just books".

"It will be somewhere you take your children for playdates, somewhere to go to do adult learning and also they've got the training kitchen there so we can teach people how to cook."

Library services will move from the current site in the historical Carnegie Library building in London Road.

Andy Sims from Mace, the company carrying out the construction, said the building would be completed by Christmas, "if not before".

He said locals had been sceptical about the project but he had noticed a growing excitement.