Lewisham Council is threatening to cut up to £500,000 from our library service.

During the pandemic Lewisham libraries have been closed, many library staff working on test and trace, and offering online services, ebooks and some lovely online story times and a click and collect book service.

After lockdown libraries can go back to what they do best and help our communities recover, help people find jobs, training, education, grants, benefits, assistance for businesses and put on story times for children.

And of course people will be able to browse for books properly, access computers or use the WiFi with trained staff to help.

But the council's threatened cut will rip the staff along with their skills and knowledge out of the service and dedicated people who've spent hard months on test and trace face losing their jobs.

Council minutes make the reason clear. People in Lewisham are being made to pay the Covid bill.

And the poor and vulnerable who have already suffered terribly under Covid will now suffer the most as their services and all of our services are slashed.

Originally we feared libraries would not reopen at all proposals due to go to Mayor and Cabinet were to not reopen libraries, This petition has been altered because Councillor Slater has told us "The proposal to only maintain a ‘click and collect’ service was included in the council’s budget papers in error. There is absolutely no intention of restricting library services to ‘click and collect’ only on a permanent basis and we apologise for any concern this administrative error may have caused. We will ensure that this wording doesn’t appear in future budget papers." We note councillors still scrutinised and voted for the proposal in committee.

But with a cut of as much as £500,000 what sort of library service will we have? We call on Lewisham Council to withdraw this cuts proposal and properly fund and staff a library service to help everyone in Lewisham when people need help most.