Martinborough Library moving to new home

The Martinborough Library will finally have a new home next month after six months operating from a portacom.

South Wairarapa District Council chief executive Jack Dowds confirmed that a lease on a new building, 6 Kitchener St, had been signed. The lease is for three years with rights of renewal for a further six years.

"We've been very lucky to get the building. It's very centrally located," Dr Dowds said.

He said council was hoping the library could be moved to the new building at the end of the month but that early March was more likely. He also said the building required some minor modifications.

"The landlord has builders in doing that modification and that might take three weeks to complete," Dr Dowds said.

The Martinborough Library has been temporarily housed in a portacom in the Pain and Kershaw carpark, after its previous Jellicoe St building was deemed earthquake-prone last July.

A seismic assessment report showed the previous building met only 6 per cent of building codes.

Dr Dowds said the new building would be earthquake safe and library services would remain the same.

"It's just another building; same services, same staff. We'll have our computers in there."

District librarian Shirley Nightingale said although it had been nice working from the portacom, she was looking forward to moving to the new location.

"It will be good to get all the books back together and for the customers to have access to it [all] again," Mrs Nightingale said.

She said library services would continue as usual.

"We will have the same services. We didn't lose any services [in the temporary location], except the computer access for the customers, so we will be back to our usual services," she said.