A last-minute bid to build Ashburton’s new public library at Ashburton College is likely to be canned tomorrow by Ashburton’s district councillors.

Last month the majority, including mayor Donna Favel voted to overturn a decision made by councillors in the previous term to build the library and civic centre on one site.

Sites in the mix were Baring Square east, Eastfield and the current civic centre site in Baring Square west for a co-build of the library and civic centre.

The college site had earlier been discounted as an option for the library but the new team of councillors wanted consultants Opus Architecture to investigate the dual site option again.

It found there was little to be gained by splitting the sites and that the college library option came with some significant disadvantages.

Reports from Opus and from council staff will be discussed at tomorrow’s council meeting and they include the recommendation that “council ceases any further exploration with the Ashburton College and Ministry of Education on the option of siting the new council library on the Ashburton College site and that the Administration & Library Facilities Project Control Group be convened to review the status and progress of the site selection process and report back to council”.

The college option was thrown back into the mix at the request of the college’s new principal Ross Preece when he spoke during the public forum at the February council meeting.

As well as the community needing a new library so too did the college.

Building one facility that met the needs of the school and the community made sense, he said.

He told councillors that the college had several million dollars in available funding and could look at using some of this to assist the building of the new library as a joint facility.

The demolition of the community pool has provided an available land area of approximately 2700m2 where the new library building could be sited.

The proposal was for the library to be based on the Riccarton Library model in Christchurch and the college’s expectation was that the facility would be owned and operated by the council on land owned by the college/Ministry of Education.

In its report Opus said that there were no funding guarantees from the ministry; the only indication of support was the provision of the land on a lease basis.

The college itself indicated that it could possibly provide funding up to $500,000.

Opus found that the college option did not deliver a financial benefit for the community because the shared facility would need to be larger and therefore more expensive than a co-build.

Reaching agreement with the ministry would also involve protracted negotiations that could delay the project.

And those findings led Opus to recommend that the council proceed no further with the college site option and that the project group reconvened to review the status and progress of the current site selection.

By Sue Newman © The Ashburton Guardian - 5 April 2017