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Closure date announced for library ahead of move

Andrew Turner
BBC News, Norfolk
Reporting fromGreat Yarmouth
Andrew Turner/BBC Great Yarmouth's central library, with a pathway, bordered by plants in "boat" shaped, blue raised beds, and community garden on the approach. The building features a large box window above the entrance. A few people are standing outside.Andrew Turner/BBC
Great Yarmouth Library will close on 14 March to allow books to be relocated to The Place, in the town centre

A library will close next month ahead of its relocation to the centre of a town on the Norfolk coast.

The library on Tollhouse Street in Great Yarmouth will shut on 14 March and later will reopen inside The Place, which is the former Palmers Department Store on the Market Place, although no date for its completion has been announced.

Norfolk County Council said its team needed time to prepare for the move, but had not yet set an opening date for the new facility.

It says in the interim, people should access library services in Gorleston, Martham or Caister-on-Sea.

The Place, which had been due to be handed over in January, will also house students on courses with East Coast College and the University of Suffolk as part of a £17m redevelopment of the building.

Andrew Turner/BBC The former Palmers Department Store, with its refurbished windows and facade, and in the near-ground, the new paving of the market place. Hoardings surround the building site and people are walking close by. There are cones and barriers visible.Andrew Turner/BBC
The Place - the former Palmers Department Store - is undergoing a £17m transformation into a new library and learning campus

The old library - which is adjoined to the medieval Tollhouse court and jail - will eventually be used to accommodate the council's adult and children's services teams.

Those staff are in the process of vacating the privately-owned Havenbridge House to be temporarily based in Greyfriars House - a building owned by Great Yarmouth Borough Council - in a move that aimed to reduce rental costs.

The borough council's planning department vacated Greyfriars last month - relocating to The Novus Centre - and during the clear-out found 120-year-old plans for the town's Britannia Pier.

Andrew Turner/BBC Greyfriars House is a former church and church hall, featuring a white sandstone and knapped flint facade. The building has a turret housing a staircase and large arched windows, and a chequerboard design at the upper parts of the gable ends.Andrew Turner/BBC
Greyfriars House became surplus to the borough council's requirements when staff moved into the Novus Centre

Jane James, cabinet member for innovation and corporate services at the county council, said the move would "make the best use of its estate".

"This will see the services currently located in Havenbridge House move into the vacated Great Yarmouth Library building in 2026 following a period of upgrading and reconfiguration of that building," she said.

"These changes will not only ensure that our estate is sustainable and able to support future service deliveries, but that it can drive, support and contribute to wider council priorities."

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