Edinburgh council announces temporary Library for Leith opens

A new temporary library will open at the Fort Community Centre today (March 8) until normal service resumes at Leith Library on Ferry Road.

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The city council announced last month that library services would be made available at the community centre while the library continued to be used as a Covid test centre.

Now it says plans for the temporary arrangements are complete and the stand-in library will operate from tomorrow.

The gym hall at the community centre has been turned into a library.

The gym hall space has been successfully adapted and kitted out to allow the temporary service to include customers borrowing, returning and reserving library stock; bus pass applications; Hey Girls sanitary provision; hearing aid batteries; food recycling bags; and Bookbug under-fives rhyme times for children and their parents/ carers.

Two weeks after the announcement of the temporary arrangement, the Scottish Government agreed to a request from the council for the libraries being used as test centres to be handed back. And the council has subsequently said it hopes to reopen the affected libraries, including Leith, from the end of April.

However it made an exception of Sighthill Library, based at the Gate 55 community centre, which is going to be kept as a Covid test centre, with customers pointed to Wester Hailes Library as an alternative. But groups who have been unable to use the centre for two years because of the closure are demanding it should reopen with the rest.

The opening hours for the temporary library at Fort Community Centre will be:

The temporary library will remain open until Leith Library resumes normal service.

- Monday 1pm to 8pm

- Tuesday 10am to 5pm

- Wednesday 1pm to 8pm

- Thursday 10am to 5pm

- Friday 10am to 5pm

- Saturday 10am to 5pm

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