PLANS for a new purpose-built home for Carmarthenshire Archives have been approved this week.
Carmarthenshire County Council’s planning committee accepted an officers’ recommendation to grant planning permission for the archive repository facility behind the library in St Peter’s Street, which is a listed building.
The extension will be three-storey where it adjoins the library building and allows a connection between the reference floor of the library to the new archive. The top floor will contain the public search room and the floor below will have workspace where the archivist team can work.
The new repository will have temperature and humidity controls and will enable the archive collection to be brought back to the county after having been stored elsewhere because of mould problems with the previous facilities.
It is hoped that bringing the archive service into the town centre will bring additional footfall to the King Street area of town, whilst adding to its ‘cultural quarter’ ethos.
The Collection has been cleaned and is now in temporary storage at Glamorgan Archive and The Richard Burton Archive, Swansea.
Planning committee chair Cllr Alun Lenny said: “I believe the plan is an excellent and exciting one.”
Executive Board Member for Culture, Sport and Tourism Cllr Peter Hughes Griffiths said: “It’s good news that the Archive now has planning permission and I’m looking forward to seeing the scheme go ahead. It will provide an archival service among the best in Wales.”
The new Archive will be extended on to the rear of the existing Library in Carmarthen and is expected to open in 2019.
