Volunteer Libraries in Lewisham

Lewisham were somewhat ahead of us in tackling their library service. Like Brent, they had to cope with financial cutbacks, but unlike us they have tried going down the volunteer route.  The results seem to have been less than successful.  The volunteer libraries languish at the bottom of the figures as Lewisham's least popular.  The linked report particularly looks at Blackheath, which has the lowest usage of all.  The quoted figures show a fall of 80% as a volunteer run library compared to the former Council run facility.  This is despite the charity that took it over being given £200k to run it.  That kind of money to run a facility using by about 1,000 people per month doesn't sound like good value for money.