Library closed after rent row could become bookies

Plans to convert a former library into a bookmakers have been criticised by campaigners trying to save it.

Breck Road Library, in the Anfield area of Liverpool, has been closed since November 2025 after a rent dispute.

Ruth Knox, from Save Liverpool Libraries, said turning three quarters of the Mall site into a betting shop would offer little to the community and there was already a "surplus" of bookies in the area. She said the library was a haven for all sorts of people - from mums and toddlers who attended baby groups to children accessing books for school projects to jobseekers.

The BBC has contacted BoyleSports (UK) Ltd, which is planning to convert the site, for comment.

Liverpool City Council said no decision has been made yet over whether the planning application by the company which has nearly 400 shops across the UK and Ireland will be granted.

The running of Breck Road and Dovecot libraries was handed to the Alt Valley Community Trust (AVCT) in 2015, when Liverpool City Council said it could no longer afford to operate them.

Last summer, the city council stopped providing funds for those services.

The city council previously said that AVCT owed a "substantial" amount of money going back over "many years".

AVCT rejected this claim and said it had been running the libraries at a fraction of the costs incurred by the local authority when it was in charge.

After an agreement could not be reached, the council activated a break clause in its head lease with the building's owners and took possession of Breck Road Library.

It has been closed ever since, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) said.

Now a planning application from Boylesports is seeking to divide the building into two units.

One of them would be kept for potential community use.

Planning documents submitted to Liverpool City Council detailed how the smaller unit would be offered to the market - including AVCT - at a nominal or discounted rate.

It added: "If after 12 months of active marketing at a nominal and/or discounted rate an appropriate community focused end user cannot be found, the unit would be offered to the wider market."

Knox said it was "unbelievable" that a library had been closed "and yet another betting shop may now open", adding that the situation was even worse because it had happened in an economically deprived part of Liverpool.

The 74-year-old told BBC Radio Merseyside: "We need a proper library.

"The space left aside could not possibly be a library even if the bookies were willing to sub-let it as such."

She called on the council "as a matter of urgency to find the money to provide the same service to the people of Everton and Anfield that every other neighbourhood in the city enjoys".

Councillor Ellie Byrne, whose ward the library falls into, said on social media: "I knew the grave consequences closing our library would have. I warned against it, objected at every opportunity and fought this decision from the outset."

The Labour councillor said she visited the library every week with her primary school.

"Why should children growing up in Everton East today have fewer opportunities than I had? Our community needs this space and the promise of alternative provision must be honoured."

While Breck Road remains shut, it was confirmed earlier this year how Liverpool City Council and AVCT had reached an agreement to reinstate funds for the operation of the library in Dovecot, the LDRS added.

A Liverpool City Council spokesperson said: "We are proud of our network of libraries and our vision is for them to be vibrant, inclusive, and digitally connected community hubs at the heart of our communities.

"Breck Road Library was operated by a private organisation and closed last November due to failure to pay debt."

The authority added: "Everton East is to receive £20m of Pride in Place funding from the government and the local community will be involved in determining the facilities that will be provided."

AVCT has been contacted by the BBC for comment.

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