North Harrow Community Library

NHCL is a community led initiative which came about when the council announced the closure of the library. A group of residents formed a charity and with the support of the community submitted a business plan to run the library. Following a three-year negotiation, we were granted a 20 year’s sub lease on the premises .

Since reopening the library in September 2018, our membership has grown to over 3000 and of that 1248 are under the age of 16.

We provide a free library service with a book stock of around 25000, free computer access, rhyme time for toddlers every week and regular children’s activities. Every term around 300 children visit from schools, to support their literacy programme and encourage children to read.

As a community hub we partner with other community groups & charities for the benefit of the community. Since January we have opened as a “warm hub” providing a safe warm place and for children we introduced a weekly free Saturday Arts and Craft workshops for children attended by around 30 children each week.

Our aim is to put on activities which attract children to the library and that leads to more use of the library in terms of book lending and increased literacy. Our special events appeal to large number of children, the Jubilee celebration event had around 100 children attending.