New chapter for village library

Villagers are already catching up on their reading after the official opening of a new, volunteer-run community library.
Local county councillor Barry Young cuts the ribbon to open Heckington library watched by parish council chairman Jan Palmer. EMN-151217-131845001Local county councillor Barry Young cuts the ribbon to open Heckington library watched by parish council chairman Jan Palmer. EMN-151217-131845001
Local county councillor Barry Young cuts the ribbon to open Heckington library watched by parish council chairman Jan Palmer. EMN-151217-131845001

The bid to create the facility based at Heckington Community Rooms, on St Andrew’s Street, has been led by the parish council over the past two years since the county council proposed to hand smaller libraries over to be run by the community.

County councillor for Heckington Barry Young officially cut the ribbon on Wednesday. He was delighted to see it open after helping behind the scenes. The library will initially open 12-5pm on Wednesdays and 10am-12noon on Saturdays, replacing the mobile library which visited for half a day a week.

Eventually it will stock around 3,000 books on shelving salvaged from Coningsby library, which has closed.

Parish council chairman Jan Palmer said: “It is a great enhancement on the village’s library provision and we have already had very good feedback since we first opened on December 2. We are getting more and more volunteers and are currently up to 20.”

The parish council has a pot of up to £15,000 for set up costs supplied by the county council. The library has a reference section, children’s books, audio books and computers which the public can book to use. The system is fully integrated with the county library service and so any book can be ordered.

“We want to do children’s story times in the holidays,” said Coun Palmer.