Shropshire Archives to cut public opening days and pause volunteer projects while records are moved out of Shirehall

The announcement comes as the archives staff work to catalogue and relocate 55,000 boxes of records from Shropshire Council headquarters Shirehall.

The council has officially closed Shirehall to the public and plans to fully leave the building in the coming months.

The authority has confirmed that as part of the work to move the records, the Shropshire Archives will only be open on Thursdays from next year.

A statement from the council said: "The archives staff are working in partnership with their records management colleagues to take on a major project to inventory and relocate 55,000 boxes of corporate records.

"The project is part of Shropshire Council’s plans to reduce spending, support agile working and move out of Shirehall and into new premises at Guildhall in Frankwell over the next few months."

Lezley Picton, leader of the council, said: “The main aim of the project is to inventory and move the 55,000 boxes of corporate records out of Shirehall.

“This will enable the council to fully close the building as part of its aim to make savings. As part of the move the records management and archive services are also working with departments to ensure records are kept in line with the council’s retention policy, as well as cataloguing historic council records in more detail. Both of these will improve efficiency and accountability.”

The council statement added: "The documents cover the operation of Shropshire Council and include adults and children’s care records, as well as coroners and magistrates’ records. These are currently cared for by the records management service at Shirehall.

"The collection held by Shropshire Archives will also be assessed to accommodate additional storage and over 6,000 boxes of historic council material at Shropshire Archives will be catalogued.

"Archives staff will be heavily involved in the project which means Shropshire Archives will only be open to the public for one day per week from January 1 2025.  It is anticipated that the project will take 12 months to complete.

"Current volunteering projects will be paused until January 2026, however there are a number of ways for volunteers to continue to engage with the work of Shropshire Museums & Archives – please contact archives@shropshire.gov.uk for details.

"They will be open as normal until Friday, December 20, 2025, before closing for Christmas then re-opening on Thursday, January 2, 2025, with the new one-day opening."