Shropshire Archives is set to reduce public opening to one day a week and pause most of its current volunteering projects.

The chances which take place from January come into effect as archives staff work in partnership with their Records Management colleagues to take on a major project to inventory and relocate 55,000 boxes of corporate records from Shirehall.

Shropshire Archives is currently open four days a week Wednesday to Saturday 10am until 4pm.

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 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 1 January 2025. It is anticipated that the project will take 12 months to complete. Current volunteering projects will be paused until January 2026.

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