A SCHEME to give Oxford’s iconic Radcliffe Camera a £5m facelift has been given the go-ahead by Oxford City Council.

The work will involve major alterations to one of Oxford University’s most recognisable and photographed buildings.

Inside the Radcliffe Camera modern partitions and a staircase will be removed and a new lift installed to give easier access to visitors and readers.

An underground book store under Radcliffe Square will also be refurbished, with the creation of two floors of open stack library space.

The work will involve the opening of a tunnel running underground between the Radcliffe Camera and the main library of the Old Bodleian building.

Dr Sarah Thomas, Bodley’s Librarian, said: “We fully recognise the great duty of looking after these buildings.

“We are pleased that we have the support to undertake these sensitively conceived projects, which will enable greater access for students and visitors with limited mobility and allow better reader services.”

The tunnel running under the square between the two libraries had previously only been used by staff.

The refurbishment work will mean that for the first time readers will be able to move underground between the Radcliffe Camera and the Old Bodleian.

It will be known as the Gladstone Link, after the great Liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone, who was a student at Oxford.

An underground book store was created underneath Radcliffe Square between 1909 and 1912 to relieve the library of a shortage of space for its expanding collection.

The plan will also see a new lift being created in the Old Bodleian, with major adjustments to the paving level in the library’s Old Schools Quadrangle, which forms the main courtyard of the Old Bodleian.

It is believed that the quad had once been level with the doorways in the square but was dropped to accommodate a new drainage system, meaning that it remains uneven.

Bringing up the level of the quad to the level of the four lowest doorways will enable better disabled access and book delivery.

The Radcliffe Camera is a grade I-listed building and was the first rotunda library built in England, in the mid-18th century.

The platform lift will enable readers with limited mobility to access the Camera for the first time.

A Bodleian spokesman said: “The platform lift has been designed to respect the grandeur and magnificence of the Radcliffe Camera by being as non-invasive as possible, using glass to avoid restricting the through view to the windows on the Lower Reading Room.

“A new staircase will wrap around the platform lift, providing safe access to the Gladstone Link and replacing a very steep staircase that was put in during the installation of the underground book store.”

The planning application went to the city council’s central south and west area committee on Tuesday.

It was approved with a number of minor conditions.

The work is scheduled to be completed by next spring.

The Bodleian said the plans had been made possible by the building of the Bodleian’s new book store near Swindon, scheduled for completion in September, where millions of low-usage books will be kept.

High-usage books will be kept in Oxford in the Gladstone Link and existing reading rooms.

The scheme follows the Bodleian’s £78m scheme to transform the New Bodleian Library in Broad Street. Planning permission was given for this in May.

The New Bodleian is to be renamed the Weston Library, with the building to be opened up to the public for the first time, allowing the Bodleian to put many of its treasures on display, with the building to have a glass frontage on Broad Street.