Plans for a major refurbishment of Manchester's town hall complex, improving services to the public and investing in key civic buildings and spaces, have been given the go-ahead.

Manchester City Council's top-level Executive approved proposals for a project lasting up to five years. At its heart are the goals of maintaining the historic complex for future generations while enabling the buildings to deliver state-of-the-art services.

The Town Hall Extension, Central Library and St Peter's Square will all benefit from the programme, scheduled to start this year and run until 2014. It is estimated the work will cost up to £165 million which will be partly offset by other savings.

One important aspect of the plans is the creation of a new Customer Service Centre on the ground floor of the Town Hall Extension. This would bring together a number of key services in a welcoming environment and enable visitors to resolve different enquiries in a single visit. For example a resident could pay their Council Tax, check out their housing benefit entitlement and borrow a book from a new family and community library.

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The new family and community library, which it is proposed to call City Library, will also be created on the ground floor alongside the Town Hall Extension. This follows the success of similar community libraries elsewhere in the city, for example North City Library in Harpurhey, which combine library facilities with other council services.

The refurbishment will create more desk spaces in the Town Hall Extension as office space is used more effectively, enabling the Council to vacate office space elsewhere in the city.

Councillor Bernard Priest, Executive Member for Finance and Human Resources, said: "Manchester has arguably the finest civic complex of any British city outside London. This refurbishment programme is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to upgrade the services offered from these buildings and radically improve the experience of people using them. It will also enable us to enhance the public spaces in which these internationally significant buildings are set."

(CD/JM)