A NEW £50.5m super-library being planned for Worcester city centre will benefit the whole county, councillors have declared.

The four-storey library - the first of its kind in Europe - will be built on a city council depot in The Butts by 2012 if the proposals go ahead.

The Worcester Library and History Centre will bring together the county council's library service, history centre and archaeology service with the University of Worcester's new library and the county and city council's customer contact centre.

It is hoped the new centre will attract a million visitors a year.

Yesterday, Worcestershire County Council's cabinet formally approved the outline business plan for the centre, which now means that - if it is rubber stamped by the full council - it will be sent off to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) for review.

Following that review, the application will go to the Treasury's Project Review Group (PRG), which is ultimately responsible for the allocation of credits under the private finance initiative.

In August last year, the Government announced £36.8m PFI funding for the development, which will be added to £10m already secured by the University College Worcester from the Higher Education Funding Council.

The total cost to the county council is £2.039m but under its existing budget the authority only has £1.456m to spend. It is therefore looking to plug the net gap of £583,000 with a number of revenue raising options, such as investment by other public and private sector bodies.

At yesterday's cabinet meeting, the leader of the county council, Dr George Lord, said: "This is a unique opportunity in that we will have a joint university and library.

"It will enhance not only the status of Worcester city but the whole of the county," he added Coun Stephen Clee agreed with him.

He said: "This is an exciting project for the county."

But there is still a long way to go.

If the business case is approved by the Treasury it is likely to take, according to the county council, two years of work to reach the stage of awarding a contract for the building of the new library.

The centre will form part of University College Worcester's £130m Castle Street expansion.