A THRIVING community office is set to be given its own premises at a cost of more than £50,000.

Richmondshire District Council’s corporate board will hear the Colburn facility, where residents can access a range of the authority’s services, has outgrown its base in the town’s library as space was needed to provide support to customers with queries.

Since being taken on as a community-run library, it has been reorganised, leaving the community officer beside the children’s play area.

This has increased concerns about privacy and dealing with sensitive issues in the open part of the library and staff working at the office have also flagged the cramped conditions they are working in.

An officers’ report to the meeting states the community office is one of the council’s busiest and most needed, and as such “it is important that the service continue and be undertaken in suitable premises that offer confidentiality, and space for staff based there”.

However, as there were no available premises near the library on Broadway, and officers concluded the new office needed to be near the library and preferably in council ownership, it has been proposed to convert a council flat in Oak Tree Court.

The report said the cost of converting the flat into an office would be up to £56,000.