Upper Norwood Library Trust

A brief history... 

The Upper Norwood Library was jointly founded by Lambeth and Croydon Councils in 1906 as an early example of cross-borough cooperation. In 1994, the Councils formalised their collaboration under the ‘1994 Agreement’, which outlined responsibilities for joint operation and funding.

Furthering this progressive example of early cross-borough collaboration, Lambeth and Croydon Councils worked side-by-side with the local community, and the Upper Norwood Library Trust (UNLT) was established in 2012 with the aim of protecting and sustaining the Upper Norwood Library service through the shared use of the building and delivering a range of community-led activities to provide lifelong learning and opportunities to strengthen local communities.

The Upper Norwood Library service, delivered by Lambeth Council and co-funded by Croydon Council, continues to provide the statutory library service at the Upper Norwood Library 6 days a week; ensuring access to professional library resources, collections, and programming. The library service is the heart of the building, located on the ground floor with the quiet study area and further book collections on the first floor.

In support of the new community-led library trust, the Councils provided a pioneering tapered funding agreement in support of the community-led group building their foundations for a sustainable, thriving community-led library hub. In 2016, UNLT launched the organisation through the management of the Upper Norwood Library Hub and began work in hiring out the Burgundy, Teal rooms, café area and spaces not used by the library service (outside their library service hours) to build the financial foundations for a long-term sustainable mixed income community model.

Alongside the community room hire programme, UNLT launched a variety of community events and programmes; filling the spaces within the building with a community-led sharing, learning, health, wellbeing and performance programme. Additionally, UNLT launched its wider outreach programme to broaden their reach across South London in pursuit of providing lifelong learning and opportunities and protecting and sustaining library services more widely and in 2024 launched its Theory of Change, supported by the Charities Aid Foundation to demonstrate their impact and shine a spotlight on what can be achieved through a community-led approach, uniting communities, councils and libraries.