By Matt Jarram, Local Democracy Reporter
Nottingham City Council is in the final stages of selling off the former Angel Row central library almost two years after the site was closed.
Nottingham residents have been left without a main city library since March 2020 after the council decided to close the Angel Row facility during pandemic restrictions.
It decided not to re-open it, pending completion of the new multi-million-pound main city library in the Broadmarsh car park development.
The building itself has been completed but the council still needs to find around £10m of investment to fit it out.
The council says some of the money from the sale of the Angel Row library could be used to fit out the new library.
Some of the money would have also come from a government Levelling Up bid, which the council missed out on last October, as part of a wider bid to demolish the rest of the Broadmarsh shopping centre.
The thousands of books and records from Angel Row are currently being stored at an industrial unit two miles from the city centre, which is not open to the general public.
Under a delegated decision – made outside of a council meeting – the Labour-run authority has now decided to dispose of the Angel Row library. The exact sale details have not been disclosed.
The decision states: “The property has been marketed on the open market and a preferred purchaser has been selected with whom there have been negotiations.
“Final terms have now been agreed and the next stage is to proceed to exchange of contracts and this is supported by the property department.”
It says the money from the sale will be pumped into the council’s capital programme.
The council says it has decided to make the details of the sale exempt from the public at this moment in time.
“The public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information because releasing the information ahead of completing the sale will potentially damage the council’s commercial position,” it said.
The Angel Row library was the most-used library across the city centre boundary before it closed.
Previously, the council said the new Central Library would open in 2023 but no exact date has been confirmed.
The fit-out of the new library has been costed in the council’s medium-term financial plan, which shows where money will be spent and saved across the local authority over the next four years.
Cllr David Mellen (Lab), leader of the council, previously told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “The Medium Term Financial Plan shows the full costs for the scheme.
“It is prudent at this stage not to show a reliance on unsecured grant funding but the council will continue to explore the potential of external funding for this scheme.
“The £10.5m is the current estimate which covers the costs of design work, contractors, building and fit-out works, library equipment including new stock and future lifecycle costs.”
