Woodrow Customer Service Centre to be moved into refurbished library (From Redditch Advertiser)

Woodrow Customer Service Centre to be moved into refurbished library

1:50pm Monday 10th September 2012 in News

REDDITCH Council’s Woodrow Customer Service Centre is to be moved into a refurbished Woodrow Library next year.

Councillors at a recent meeting of full council confirmed a recommendation made by the executive in July to move the council’s Woodrow customer service facility into the county council’s nearby library in a bid to boost efficiency and improve services.

The more efficient partnership use of Woodrow’s community facilities, which had already been agreed in principle by Worcestershire County Council, allows a significant refurbishment of the building to take place.

The county council, which leases the library building from the borough council, is to invest in refurbishing the library to provide a modern multi functional community facility. By working in partnership, the borough council will maintain its ‘One Stop Shop’ service as well as working with the county council to develop the community use of the library.

The move to share the refurbished library is expected to increase access to the range of support groups, training initiatives and adult learning available through the library, as well as creating a new space in the library that will be available for a range of community services to use.

Redditch borough councillor Phil Mould, who is responsible for corporate management, said: “These are important public services for the community in Woodrow and all of Redditch.

“Putting the services we know people want together under one roof makes it easier for people to access them, and furthermore by working together we are using public resources more efficiently and continuing to improve support to residents. All this is vital given the big savings we need to make.”

Councillor John Campion, county council cabinet member with responsibility for the library service, said: "Our commitment to library services across Worcestershire is to keep them open and explore opportunities to share buildings with other local organisations. This will help the service save money and help provide real community venues which house a range of public services which local people can access.”

As a further result of the move, Redditch Council could also release property elsewhere to be put to residential use due to re-organisation of office space.