Greater Manchester borough hopes to ‘send a welcome message to our residents that they will have a completely free library service’

Library members in Trafford who have mislaid their copies of Harry Potter or Stephen King will no longer have to fear financial punishment after the council announced that it would be abolishing library fines altogether.

In a first for a UK borough, the council said in a statement that fines can be “off-putting for customers”, and it hopes the change, which will see library fines eliminated across Trafford for all ages from April, will lead to “a further increase in usage of libraries across the borough”.

The council said: “This change also aligns with the Vision 2031 ambition of ‘no one held back, no one left behind’ as there would be no barriers, either actual or perceived, of people accessing libraries and all they had to offer.”

Last year saw Trafford’s first increase in library usage in 17 years, said council leader Sean Anstee.

“It’s another way to encourage usage,” he said. “It will be a permanent change, but we have said to councillors that scrutiny is welcome, to look at the impact of the decision.”

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Some councillors had raised fears that the abolition could lead to more books going unreturned. But Anstee called it “a trust thing”, adding: “We don’t have an issue with people retaining books at the moment and if we didn’t have a book returned, that person’s ability to borrow more books would be removed.”

He pointed to “anecdotal evidence from Bolton, which abolished fines for under 16s a couple of years ago and saw usage go up”. Anstee added that the council had only made around £30,000 a year from library fines, which had a maximum of £10.

There are currently 12 libraries in Trafford. Four of them are being rebuilt, with volunteers working alongside librarians in some of the libraries.

The investment in libraries in Trafford sits in stark contrast to cuts in other local authorities: in Northampton, at least 21 of the council’s 36 branches are under threat of closure, while almost half of Somerset’s 34 libraries are currently at risk.

“We are trying to position them as focal points at the heart of the community,” said Anstee. “It hasn’t been easy to keep them, but it is a choice.”

Ian Anstice, a librarian who runs the Public Library News website, said the fine abolition had “shocked the UK public library world”. “The big barrier to this in the UK is of course where the money is going to come from if we get rid of fines,” he wrote. “Charging people for late books does bring in some money that will need to be replaced in another way.”

“Fines are a reason people tell me they no longer use libraries. So I really hope this is a successful experiment. And an experiment that produces what a good experiment always does: shareable data on the result.”

The move was also hailed by library and information association CILIP. “Libraries are unique public spaces providing free access to reading and learning,” said chief executive Nick Poole. “They are there for everyone, and anything that removes barriers to joining and using the library is very welcome. Trafford council’s announcement to abolish library fines for all ages is an exceptional development. As long as sums add up then we would like to see all libraries taking similar steps to encourage more members and more reading.”