A COUNCILLOR has questioned why there seems to have been ‘no provision’ for offers of local support made to carry out work at Ulverston Library in a council estimate for the cost of refurbishing the building.

Councillor Ben Cooper (Low Furness, Conservative) queried why Westmorland and Furness Council had not considered offers of support from local businesses to help carry out part of the work to the King’s Road library building in the estimated cost to refurbish the site.

Members of the cabinet for Westmorland and Furness Council approved the permanent relocation of the library service into the Coronation Hall at a meeting on September 10.

The cabinet also approved a recommendation that declared the currently closed Ulverston Library building on King’s Road ‘surplus to existing operational needs’ with the future options for the asset to be assessed.

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An independent assessment found the cost of refurbishing the King’s Road library to the standard of the Kendal or Barrow libraries would cost £1.9 million. Works would include heating and electrical works, roofing repair, fabric works and refurbishment.

Cllr Cooper said: “How come in the estimate there seems to have been no provision for all the offers of local support from local trades people and local businesses.”

He added offers were made to Ulverston Town Council and Westmorland and Furness Council on how people were willing to help either foot part of the bill or carry out some of the work to refurbish King’s Road library building.

In response the cabinet member for highways, assets and ICT councillor Peter Thornton told the council chamber the authority ‘could never track’ any of the offers down.

“People kept saying to us, there’s an electrician who will fix it all for free, we asked for details, and nothing ever came back. What we suspected was there’s someone who would fix some of the obvious faults but it needed a complete re-wire”, he added.

The library on King’s Road closed in September 2023 after the discovery of electrical faults in the building during routine statutory checks.

According to a council report, it would cost £1.1 million to allow the ‘safe occupation’ of the Kings Road library with an additional £750,000 required to achieve a similar ‘look and feel’ to other libraries refurbished by the council.

Cllr Cooper also asked how the council got into a position whereby a previously ‘functioning library’ was in need of renovation going into the ‘millions of pounds’.

In response Cllr Thornton said: “It was designed at the end of the 50s, it was built at the beginning of the 60s, so it’s an elderly building.

“During that time, I don’t think it’s ever been closed for renovation, so things build up. The issues which caused it to close was an electrical report and there were some things on that report which meant they had to close immediately for safety reasons.

“They could’ve been fixed relatively easily; the rest of the report is much more extensive. When you start renovating a building like that, you look at all kinds of things, and the whole building needed a complete renovation.

“The question we had to answer was, if you need to spend several million pounds, are you better off spending it there or the Coro. Our decision, which has now been called in for further looking at, was that the Coro was the best place to put that level of investment.”