BULLDOZERS will move into Tavistock in two weeks' time to demolish the old Carr's Garage in Plymouth Road to make way for a brand new library.

Contracts were signed on Monday afternoon ending four years of delicate negotiations between a number of partners in the £1.6-million deal.

The redevelopment of the site is expected to take 12 months and will include the purpose-built £500,000 library and lifelong learning centre and offices.

Ten new flats at the rear of the site, facing the canal, will complete the complex. They will be owned and managed by West Devon Homes, the organisation set up in 1999 to provide housing in the area, rented at affordable levels to local people on the housing waiting list.

Both West Devon Homes and Cornwall Housing Association will have offices in the development.

Pedestrian walkways and a new canal bridge will also be built to link the development with adjacent parkland.

West Devon Borough Council, working closely with Devon County Council, entered into the contract with Devon and Cornwall Housing Association and Capita Business Services. The building works will be carried out by EBC Construction Ltd of Plymouth.

The new library, on the corner of Canal Road, will be three times bigger than the current library next to the Pannier Market, which is old and cramped.

It will have a computer training suite and meeting room, Internet access via public access PCs, a council information point, an archive and local studies information point.

The new facility has been the long-held dream of county council vice-chairman Roy Cook from Mary Tavy who warned last year that Tavistock could lose the chance of a new library through planning delays.

But this week Mr Cook said: 'I am delighted after all these years that Tavistock has got the library it so richly deserves.

'It will give us wonderful new facilities both for the town and surrounding community and is the start of a process which we all hope will make Tavistock a major learning centre.'

He paid tribute to officers at West Devon and Devon County Council, particularly David Inman, the borough council deputy chief executive.

'Mr Inman has been with us through thick and thin and always kept our spirits buoyant, saying the day would come. We are very grateful for that.'

Mr Cook said the new library would provide better services for the community especially when the next generation of mobile libraries comes on stream.

And head of the county's library services, Lynn Osborne, said Tavistock would be getting the first purpose-built unit in the county for ten years.

Cllr Margaret Garton, Mayor of West Devon, hailed the scheme as 'an illustration of what can be achieved by local government when it is prepared to think hard and work hard'.

She said: 'The borough has been leading this scheme forward for the past four years. It is a magnificent example of partnership.'