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We’re offering an ‘amnesty’ for library fines throughout January and February 2026, so you can continue enjoying books and using library services.

Got overdue charges and fines?

Overdue charges and fines for lost books are necessary to try to ensure people bring back books for others. However, we know there can be many reasons for this.

We know we won’t get all the money back associated with these charges and it’s more important to us to see people visiting and using our libraries.

We’re offering an ‘amnesty’ throughout January and February 2026 with the aim of waiving some fines or coming to an agreement on a much lower payment for those who owe a lot of money.

Why we’re offering an amnesty

The main aims of doing this are as follows:

• Increasing active membership of the service
• Stimulating book and resource loaning
• Contributing to literacy development and reading for pleasure
• Reducing barrier to libraries
• Increasing positive feelings towards the service
• Encouraging the return of books which may be sitting in people’s homes

If this affects you and you want to start using your library card again – come to the library in January and February and talk to us about this.

We can hopefully then come to an arrangement to clear your account and ‘unfreeze’ your account so you can enjoy our books and services again!

What’s involved

The amnesty will differ depending on each person’s situation but can be summarised as follows:

• Overdue charges over £5 and up to £14 (the limit at which an account is frozen) will be reduced to a flat rate of £5
• Anyone with overdue fees under £5 but who may have let their membership lapse i.e. not active, will be offered a ‘wipe the slate clean’ full reset for no charge.
• We will accept the return of long overdue books in good condition in exchange for removing associated charges from someone’s account
• If books are completely lost, we encourage customers to speak to their local library manager where a case-by-case judgement will be made
• Anyone wishing to get a replacement card during January and February will have the £1.60 library card replacement charge waived.

These arrangements will only apply during January and February 2026 so please contact us soon to take advantage of this offer!