A PIONEERING scheme to boost library facilities and provide affordable homes for local people in a York village is set to come to a successful conclusion within the next few weeks.

City of York Council's housing and leisure services teams got together last year in a project to transform Strensall library, with a £130,000 scheme to modernise the ground-floor library facilities and to provide two affordable flats on the first floor of the building in The Village.

The library is to re-open on March 31, while tenants are due to move into the flats next month.

The near-completion of the refurbishment was marked yesterday with a ceremony at the library, when main contractors FW Leighton Construction Ltd handed the keys to Coun Alan Jones, the council's executive member for leisure and heritage, and to Elizabeth Shields, chair of Yorkshire Housing, the housing association which has helped fund the new flats and will manage them through its Ryedale Housing Association arm.

On Monday council staff will move in to complete the final touches to the £130,000 scheme, which has been carried out as part of a community partnership scheme involving Yorkshire Housing and the council's library and housing development teams.

The refurbishment has increased the size of the library, modernised its facilities and improved access. When it opens it will also feature two new public access computers offering internet access which will be free of charge to library members for up to two hours a day. It will stock a range of books, audio books, CDs, children's videos and children's story tapes.

Coun Jones said: "This scheme has safeguarded the future of the community library and provided two much-needed flats for affordable rent in the village.

Coun Ruth Potter, the council's executive member for housing, said the council's £88,000 investment in the two flats was "excellent value for money".

Updated: 08:46 Friday, March 14, 2003