In recognition of important and innovative support provided locally, St Paul’s Cray Library have been selected as finalists for The Bookseller’s Library of the Year award for 2025.
Recent refurbishment brought services together at St Paul’s Cray Library and Community Support Centre, allowing experienced support centre staff to continue to offer advice and guidance locally alongside the high-quality library service found across the borough, which now benefits from enhanced, modern facilities following the works. The centre has been shortlisted for the national award for its innovation in promoting reading and supporting the needs of local residents.
Councillor Yvonne Bear, Executive Councillor for Renewal, Recreation and Housing said: “I am so pleased to see this library receive the recognition it deserves, as I know how important the services at this centre are in providing valued support for local residents. Our priority continues to be protecting services for residents whilst also delivering value for money for council taxpayers, and this centre shows how bringing services together can improve the overall offering.”
The redesigned library building reopened in August 2023 with bespoke areas for support centre and library customers, including a new children’s area, which sits alongside new shared facilities like computer suites, study areas, community hire spaces and accessible customer toilets. Modern consultation rooms now allow for private one-to-one meetings, with general improvements to lighting and heating having also been carried out.
Bromley’s much-loved library network, which issues over one million items each year, is run by charitable social enterprise GLL.
Rebecca Gediking, Head of Libraries for GLL, adds: “We are so proud of everyone at St Paul’s Cray library, and grateful to our partners and of course our passionate and creative library staff. Together, we support communities to thrive with innovative and imaginative approaches to champion reading and to deliver services that meet the changing needs of our library users."
Karen Napier MBE, CEO of The Reading Agency, comments: “What particularly stands out is how these libraries have become true community hubs by working so collaboratively with local partners. These finalists represent the very best of what modern libraries can achieve, proving that they remain essential, dynamic spaces of learning, creativity and community engagement, with reading at their heart.”
St Paul’s Cray was the first library to reopen in an £11m programme to modernise libraries across the borough through repair works and replacement of fixtures and fittings that have reached the end of their useful life. Burnt Ash Library was the latest library to reopen following refurbishment, which follows Southborough and Beckenham libraries. Repair works are now underway at Chislehurst and Orpington libraries.
This is in addition to the major regeneration of West Wickham Library, which is well underway and nearing completion, along with plans to relocate and improve Bromley Central Library.
For more information about the council’s library repair programme, visit www.bromley.gov.uk/LibraryRepairProgramme.
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For media enquiries, please contact James George, Public Affairs, on 020 8313 4565 or email james.george@bromley.gov.uk.