Approval for £95m British Library development hailed

The £95m redevelopment of the British Library site at Boston Spa in West Yorkshire has been hailed following the decision to grant planning permission.Leeds City Council has recently granted planning permission for the large-scale redevelopment of the site.Following significant government investment announced in the March 2020 Budget, the library is expanding and refurbishing the West Yorkshire facility. The library’s team, supported by Carter Jonas, Project Management and Planning Consultancy teams, submitted a planning application to Leeds City Council last year.The Library’s design team will work alongside Wates Construction, architects’ practice Carmody Groarke, building services engineer Buro Happold, structural engineer Price and Myers, and landscape architect J&L Gibbons.As part of the development, 220km of extra shelf space will be created in a new high-density, automated storage building which will have the highest possible level of air tightness creating a low energy passive archive.Once complete visitors to the Library’s Boston Spa site will be able to see the inner workings of the spectacular storage facility through a new public viewing gallery.The Library has also secured a Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS) grant. An additional £8.5m in funding will enable a range of energy-saving initiatives to be introduced at the Boston Spa site, including 730 solar panels, ground source heat pump system, smart meters, better insulation and the replacement of low-energy efficiency fluorescent lamps.The redevelopment of the site at Boston Spa will support is set to enable the library’s plans for a major new public centre at Temple Works in Leeds city centre. In July last year, West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) released an initial £5m of funding for urgently needed stabilisation works and detailed investigatory work to assess the viability of transforming Temple Works.