Discovery centre’s opening delayed

12:31pm Wednesday 28th March 2007

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THE opening of Winchester's £7.25m Discovery Centre has been delayed by three months.

Building work to refurbish and extend the lending library in Jewry Street began in May 2006, and was expected to be completed by this spring.

The new-look library in the former Corn Exchange building was due to open this summer.

But Hampshire County Council says "unforeseen" building work has meant construction has taken 13 weeks longer than planned - for example, after the discovery of untied brick walls and 19th century cast iron beams in masonry.

The council now says the discovery centre should be ready to open in mid-November, although no definite date has yet been announced.

Designed by county council architects, the discovery centre will include lending and reference libraries, an auditorium, art gallery, museum space, cafeteria, computer suite and classrooms.

Winchester resident Desmond Clarke, chairman of library charity Libri, slammed the delay.

He said: "When the council put together the original project they must have based it on a major survey of the building and they knew its history.

"In the end the people who are going to suffer from this delay are Winchester residents. They are the losers.

"The temporary library can't provide a comprehensive service."

The pressure is on as hundreds of Hampshire County Council staff are due to start moving in June into Capital House in Andover Road, where the temporary library is currently based, while the county council headquarters is revamped.

But a county council spokesman said staff would move to offices above the library which would be able to use the ground floor of Capital House until October.

The reference library in North Walls, meanwhile, is due to close six weeks before the opening of the discovery centre.

The prime city centre site is to be sold.