Voices: How shameful that Lambeth Council is marking World Book Day with library cuts

In the blink of an eye this morning, I went from cooing over the costumes my relatives and friends had assembled for their kids to wear to school, to utter horror. In my London borough, Lambeth Council last night rubberstamped a near 25 per cent cut to its library services, which have, like libraries around the UK, already been sliced to a single-page thinness over the years. Happy World Book Day , everyone!

I am one of many authors and illustrators to sign an open letter in protest at the council’s decision. The timing is stranger than fiction – certainly, it’s more stupid. There is no denying that Britain’s councils are in highly straitened circumstances. Librarians manage to spin gold out of minimal budgets with a skill that would impress Rumpelstiltskin. Lambeth Libraries are shortlisted for the British Book Awards Library of the Year, yet the council wants to keep 16 posts unfilled and continue its £100,000 cuts to the new books budget.

Lambeth spends £4.7m a year on its library services. Its neighbour, Southwark, spends £8.6m . More shocking is that Lambeth’s budget has barely changed in cash terms since 1984, when it was £4.2m. In the 2023-24 financial year, Lambeth Council managed to find £6.7m to spend on external consultants , while more than 50 council officers collect salaries of £100,000 or more per year.

Lambeth has been in hot water with its constituents over low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) – one in Streatham Wells had to be rolled back last year after repeatedly bringing the entirety of Streatham to a standstill during rush hour. Lambeth has always combated criticism of the LTNs by pointing to the money raised from their fines. Well, why aren’t the libraries getting a slice?

Is there some snobbery at work? Do they perhaps imagine libraries as places that only nerdy geniuses like Roald Dahl’s Matilda can use? I cannot imagine anyone would be so stupid, and yet, given the state of things now, perhaps they are. In 2019, Suffolk Libraries commissioned independent research to demonstrate the value of library investment. Every £1 spent on three of its services – a toddler club, sessions for older people, and a drop-in – generated £8.04 in intangible “social value". Social value is nebulous; it cannot be graded as exam results can, yet its ripple effect on people and services is undeniable. Library attendees in Suffolk reported improved mental health and reduced stress, as did their family members. Last year, the public raised over £250,000 to rebuild Spellow Hub library, which was set on fire during the riots. It reopened in December after a tremendous community effort, precisely because it is a community heart.

In Lambeth alone, the libraries offer books but also computer access, quiet workspaces, ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) classes, tea and coffee mornings, digital support, homework clubs, debt advice clinics, coding classes, craft clubs, and clubs for teens. The Good Things Foundation gives away sim cards to adults on low incomes to further close the digital divide. Last month, one of my own books was chosen to join Reading Well , a national scheme that provides books through libraries to help people manage their health and well-being. It is probably the greatest honour I’ll ever have, precisely because it comes through the library system.

And all this is before we even get to the reason for World Book Day. Research conducted by its namesake charity in 2023 revealed that more than 500,000 children in England do not own a book , and one in 10 children eligible for free school meals falls into this category. Among these, one in five reported that the book they selected with their token was the first book they had ever owned. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development reported in 2002 that reading for pleasure is the single biggest indicator of a child’s future success – over family income or parents’ educational background. Libraries are crucial in providing access.

The image of libraries may have solidified in Matilda as a place where book-hungry nerds can inhale as many as they can get – but that book also highlighted them as a place for lonely people to find comfort. Streatham library is filled with older men reading the morning papers together in companionable silence. In Brixton, teens enjoy the peace and graphic novel options. Parents flock to the bright, wide spiral path that centres Clapham.

These and many others house a brilliant scheme called Read Easy , where volunteers give one-to-one sessions to help adults learn to read. In 2021, 9 million adults in the UK were functionally illiterate – illiteracy is linked to shorter life expectancy, depression and obesity. Its impact on the UK economy was put at £80bn a year by the World Literacy Foundation . “Most of the sessions take place in Lambeth libraries,” a local volunteer tells me. “It’s a genuinely life-changing programme, and without the libraries, it would be much harder to deliver as you need a public place (for safeguarding reasons) that also offers privacy as readers are often shy, and it’s a huge step for them to have asked for help.”