Council ‘confident’ new Sherwood Library will finally open in summer

The new building where Sherwood Library and Sainsbury's are based
By Joe Locker, Local Democracy Reporter
Sherwood Library is now on target to open in the summer after a long list of building defects were fixed, Nottingham City Council says.
The opening of the new library in Spondon Street was delayed beyond a planned summer opening in 2024, following the discovery of more than 130 defects.
Problems included issues with the living wall, fire safety and a leak in the building’s atrium.
During a Full Council meeting on Monday (January 27) Cllr Sam Lux, the council’s executive member for leisure and culture, said: “I am pleased to say the building snags that have been delaying the project so far have now been resolved, including most recently the repair of the fire alarm panel which of course was critical for us to be able to move forward.
“We are finally in a position where we are able to schedule contractors and tradespeople to come in and do the fit-out works.
“It is not going to happen overnight but we are confident Sherwood Library is going to open this year in the summer.”
In 2017 the old library was deemed not fit for purpose due to its poor state of repair, and a consultation was held to find out what people wanted from the new facility.
By 2020 a plan was drawn up to demolish it and rebuild the library with added commercial space and housing.
The Labour-run council sold the site to local developer Hockley Developments, with an agreement that 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 due to a raft of problems.
Earlier this year the Local Democracy Reporting Service reported how work on the library had been hampered after the scheme’s previous contractor, Dako Construction, collapsed into administration.
While a new contractor was found and the library building was handed back to the council at the end of 2023 for the final fit-out, a planned summer opening was missed when the defects were discovered.
Libraries campaigner Des Conway said: “We were originally promised this library in spring 2024 by previous executive member Cllr Pavlos Kotsonis, and then autumn 2024 by Cllr Sam Lux.
“And remember the Nottingham Libraries website maintained right up until early December last year that Sherwood Library would open later in 2024. That statement was then removed a few weeks before Christmas, when the new date of ‘summer 2025’ was published.
“This work of fiction has become ‘The Never-ending Story’, and our library books are now well overdue.”