Nearly £50,000 cash boost for Leeds Library to help ease impact of Covid-19

Leeds Library is set to benefit from a £49,800 cash boost to help address the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The money from the The National Lottery Heritage Fund will be used to support the reopening of the library, including funding essential building and maintenance work. The Library has been closed for the past 15 weeks due to the coronavirus.

During lockdown the Library in Leeds city centre which is the oldest membership subscription Library still in existence in the British Isles provided online and remote services for its members including an eBook Library, digital access to newspapers and journals, a postal loans service and online events programme.

Carl Hutton, Chief Executive of the Leeds Library said thanks to the National Lottery they can now look to invest in the city's heritage and open up as quickly as possible.

The funding, made possible by National Lottery players, was awarded through The National Lottery Heritage Fund’s Heritage Emergency Fund.

Like The Leeds Library, other charities and organisations across the UK, impacted by the pandemic, are being given access to a package of support of up to £600 million of repurposed money from The National Lottery.