A town's public library is to be closed for six weeks while an access is fitted for disabled people and parents with children in buggies.

Sheets will be fitted to shelves to protect thousands of books while the work is carried out on the building in Hall Street, Barnard Castle.

There are steps outside the main door, so people in wheelchairs have to ring a bell before staff take them round to a back door to admit them.

Now a small lift is to be installed. Wheelchair and pushchair users will be able to operate it themselves, and a reception desk is to be altered to make it easier for them.

A spokesman for the library said yesterday: "We have quite a number of disabled readers, as well as mothers with young children and elderly people with shopping trolleys, and it is wrong that they have to go round to the back door.

"We tried to work out a way to stay open for business during the work, but found it impossible."

The library will close at 4pm on Saturday, February 4 and reopen Monday, March 20. Readers will be able to use other County Durham libraries during the closure, but not those in Darlington, which are run separately.