Staffordshire parish council takes on running of its village library from county

Loggerheads Library is one of 27 community-managed facilities in Staffordshire.

Staffordshire County Council has handed over the running of many libraries to organisations including community groups, a health trust, a church and Rotarians in recent years. Loggerheads Library in Eccleshall Road is now set to come under new management after the authority agreed to sublet it to Loggerheads Parish Council at a peppercorn rent from July 1.

A report to this month’s county council property sub-committee meeting said: “The county council leases this retail unit from a private landlord and has operated a public library from it for many years. The last lease was for a term of five years from August 23, 2017 and contractually expired on August 22, 2022; we are currently holding over under this agreement.

“The property was previously operating as a community managed library (CML) by a partner organisation. This organisation decided in 2022 that they no longer wished to continue to operate the library here and therefore did not want to extend their sub lease on the property.

“The libraries team were then left in a position of having to investigate the possible options with this provision. The library could have potentially been closed permanently which would have deprived the local residents of this facility.

“Secondly, the county council could run it themselves which would have led to a significant increase in running costs, or thirdly we could seek a new partner to continue its operation as a community managed library. Loggerheads Parish Council was identified as a potential partner organisation to operate a CML and in 2022 they voted to investigate the opportunity to manage Loggerheads Library.

“Since then, the parish council have engaged with the county council and met regularly with Libraries and Arts Service Officers and the existing library volunteers to understand the commitment and legal requirements of managing a CML. In December 2022 Loggerheads Parish Council voted unanimously to manage Loggerheads Library.”

Councillor Mark Deaville, cabinet member for commercial matters, told the meeting: “I’m pleased to bring this item today. The parish council really wish to do this and I’m really delighted to support them.”

Estates and valuation manager Paul Causer said: “We had a previous letting of the library to Loggerheads Community Information Shop. They decided last year they weren’t going to renew their interest in running the library and our libraries team has been able to successfully achieve an operation (with) Loggerheads Parish Council who wish to take over the running of the library.

“The lease will only be for a term of five years. We can’t offer them an extension on that, which some of the others have, because we hold a lease ourselves of only five years and the landlord of our own lease is not willing to grant a longer term than five years to us.”