Libraries at risk of closure in Liverpool funding review

Councillors in Liverpool are meeting to discuss the future of the city's library service.

They need to reduce the budget by £1.7 million (25 per cent) as part of the council’s £156 million of savings needed over the next three years due to cuts in Central Government funding.

The Local authority says the scale of the challenge resulted in a two month consultation process which explored remodelling the service and looked at how the city’s 19 public libraries were used by customers.

The report identified 11 community libraries that could be at risk of closure if alternative and viable ways of delivering the services from these buildings cannot be found.

Branches at Risk:-

• Breck Road Library
• Dovecot Library
• Fazakerley Library
• Kensington Library
• Lee Valley Library
• Old Swan Library
• Sefton Park Library
• Spellow Library
• Walton Library
• Wavertree Library
• West Derby Library

The council says are potentially at risk because of a number of factors including below average use, high running costs, their proximity to another library and the potential of the service being provided by another organisation or group.

If the report is approved, another full consultation exercise will take place which will include a series of public meetings, inviting people to have their say on the proposed service as a whole as well as those venues which have been identified as potentially at risk.