Lord Mayor hoping for fundraiser 'springboard' to get more reading
More than £250,000 has been raised to repair the riot-hit Spellow Library
The Lord Mayor of Liverpool hopes the £250,000 raised to repair the Liverpool library damaged by riots can lead to more young people reading.
Councillor Richard Kemp welcomed the woman who started the Spellow Library fundraiser, Alex McCormick, to the Town Hall to formally thank her.
It has now closed and discussions are ongoing for how to best use the money.
The library was set on fire on County Road on 3 August, which left many parts of the hub in ruins.
An original target of £500 was set, but it quickly gained momentum and the attention of the likes of Matt Haig and Nigella Lawson.
Lord Mayor, Cllr Richard Kemp, said:
"This has captured the idea of young people reading, which I think is incredibly important.
"Perhaps we can use this as a springboard, not only to do what we need to do in Spellow to provide a better facility than was there before, but perhaps we can turn this into a reading campaign across Liverpool.
"One of the things Alex told me she does is read to her child every night. That's what my parents used to do, but too many kids spend too much time on tablets, doesn't enable them to use the written word, doesn't enable them to use their imaginiation.
"So perhaps Spellow Lane isn't the end of something, it's the start of something for Liverpool."