UK’s oldest public lending library faces closure

The oldest public lending library in Britain could be closed because of local council funding cuts, reports the Mirror. Warrington Central Library in Cheshire, which first opened in 1848, is run by community interest company LiveWire, which runs 10 other libraries in the town and receives a management fee from the council. LiveWire needs to save £300,000 (A$516,494) from its annual budget, and Warrington is one of eight libraries the company has proposed closing and replacing with lockers where residents can collect books ordered over the internet. The company has claimed visitor numbers have dropped from 975,709 to 665,338 in the past four years, and said the future is for libraries to operate alongside ‘modern leisure and health facilities in large neighbourhood hubs and smaller “well-being centres”’.

Category: Library news International