COUNCIL officers are to look again at the future of York's City Archives, after rejecting a proposal which could have seen them taken to Birmingham.

A tendering process attracted four bids to take over the storage of the historic city files, three of which complied with the tender requirements.

But all of those were rejected as too costly, including one from Iron Mountain Ltd, which wanted to store the files in Birmingham, and allow York residents to view them electronically, or via a next-day delivery service.

City of York Council's ruling executive has now been advised to ask officers to re-examine the tender specification and report back with more options.

The council's head of libraries, Fiona Williams, said Iron Mountain could resubmit a bid, if it was still interested, but council leader Steve Galloway vowed the archives would stay in York.

He said: "We will not be moving the archives out of the city. That is quite clear."

The four tenders received were from the University of York's Borthwick Institute, Iron Mountain, Audata Ltd and Océ Ltd, and Nexus Property Solutions.

Nexus's tender did not meet the requirements. The other three were assessed on a variety of factors. The Borthwick Institute came out top, but exceeded the council's budget provision of £120,130.

Rita Freedman, who has long campaigned to keep the archives in the city centre, said: "This site is ideal, and one would really like the council to build on the back of this, but we need upgraded premises and perhaps larger premises, but there is perhaps a possibility of moving modern ones out, but keeping core records here."

In a report to the executive, the council's assistant director of lifelong learning and culture, Charlie Croft, outlined the three viable tenders.

On Iron Mountain's tender, he wrote: "Documents would be requested electronically and a scanned copy provided within an hour. Original documents could be requested and would be delivered from Birmingham the next day."

He added: "It provides state- of-the-art accommodation for the archives, albeit in Birmingham."

In January last year, the executive received a report on the archives, which set out a long-term vision for them, which included rehousing.

A council spokesperson said: "The council aims to have an archives service that will be a source of learning, interest, inspiration and fun for all sections of the community. However, a recent scrutiny report identified that the current provision would not be adequate to meet the vision in the future."

Coun Galloway said: "The executive will be considering the future of York's archives very carefully at the meeting next week (January 30).

"We will make a comment on our preferred option at that time.

"What this report highlights very clearly is that there are no short cuts or cheap options when taking care of important historic documents."