A very important piece of Plymouth’s history has moved to a brand new home, in a once in a generation move!
Over the weekend staff from the Council’s Library and Registration service helped move Plymouth’s Registration Records, which date back to 1837, from their old home at Lockyer Street on The Hoe, to a brand new purpose built repository at Derriford Business Park.
The Council is responsible for all of Plymouth’s Registration Records, looking after approximately 4,500 birth, death and marriage registers.
The registers are all original documents, so before they could be moved a special strong room had to be built capable of protecting them from any potential fire and water damage.
Cheryl Spear is Plymouth’s Superintendent Registrar and is responsible for all the city’s registers. She said a move like this required months of planning: “Moving something as precious to the city as these registers required precision planning. These are historical documents and each box was carefully packed and catalogued before it was signed out of Lockyer Street and signed back in at Derriford. Everything went really smoothly and we’re pleased with our new premises.”
Moving the registers is part of improvement plans that will allow the Council to provide a more modern, flexible and accessible facility that will meet the needs of residents when registering life events such as births, deaths and notices of marriage and civil partnerships.
The new Register Office at Derriford is now co-located with the city’s coroners court and includes the purpose built repository, seven new registration rooms on the ground floor and a back office working area.
Councillor Sally Haydon, Cabinet Member for Customer Service said: “Moving the register office to Derriford means we can work more closely with our partners from the Hospital and the Coroner’s Service to help us improve the overall user experience for people when they need us. It also means we can focus on offering an enhanced wedding offer in the city centre as well as promoting our ceremonies offer further by increasing the number of premises in Plymouth to be licenced, to improve choice for those wishing to get married or enter into a civil partnership.”
Civil partnership and marriage ceremonies will continue to be provided in the Drake Suite at Lockyer Street until July 2020, when this service will move to the Council House. This means the Council can continue to offer residents an affordable ceremony.
The Council House, is the city’s civic building in the heart of the city centre and can hold up to 60 guests and has a grand stairwell where photographs can be taken.
Along with the move the Council is introducing a new and improved booking system which will enable customers to book ceremonies up to two years in advance.
As part of the Joint Local Plan, it was decided that the site at Lockyer Street would offer a redevelopment opportunity and a number of options are now being considered.