A sustainable plan to secure the future of Crickhowell Library has been put forward by the town’s high school, Powys County Council has confirmed.

Crickhowell High School has approached the council’s Library Service with a proposal to manage the local library for the benefit of the community and its pupils, enabling the service to meets its local savings target. The proposal was discussed at a public drop-in session during the library savings consultation earlier this year and won support of those present.

The Friends of Crickhowell Library are also delighted at this mutually beneficial way forward for the library, which will sustain the service into the future.

Cllr Graham Brown, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Library Services, said: “This is a good outcome which sees a valued service secured for the town by an important learning provider in the community. The high school’s offer is a sustainable one which will see no disruption to the service the library provides to the local residents.

“Crickhowell High School is very community focused, already providing the sport and leisure facilities in the town, and it sees the library service as a very valuable community resource for public and pupils alike. The headteacher and governors must be commended for their foresight in turning this into an opportunity that works for them and enables the library to continue to serve the local community.”

The library will stay in its current building, offering a range of opening hours for the public, whilst there is potential for 6th form students to use the library for study purposes and for other class visits to take place to boost literacy and reading for pleasure. The ‘change over’ will be seamless, with no disruption to the service provided to the public.

“I am very excited to be able to work in partnership with Powys Libraries and the community of Crickhowell to link the school and our local library,” said Jackie Parker, Headteacher of Crickhowell High School.

“We are confident we can not only protect this vital community service but also develop it to provide an even more innovative community library service.”