Labour administration blame previous Conservative government’s funding cuts for the move but Tory councillors claim the closures were avoidable, reports Grace Howarth, Local Democracy Reporter

Southgate Library is one of seven being closed by Enfield Council

Enfield Council will go ahead with plans to close seven libraries after the cuts were voted through by Labour councillors.

Last year the council proposed closing eight of the borough’s 16 libraries while pledging to maintain those in a “strategic location” and with the “highest footfall”.

Following a public consultation that saw around 2,400 responses, Oakwood Library will now be kept open, but the seven that will still close are Southgate Library, Winchmore Hill Library, John Jackson Library in Bush Hill Park, Bullsmoor Library, Enfield Highway Library, Bowes Road Library and Enfield Island Library.

These closures are expected to save the council up to £560,000 per year in staffing and operating costs. It is also estimated that the sales of each library building could generate between £3m and £3.85m.

At a full council meeting last night (Thursday 27th) that also saw the 2025/26 budget approved, Conservative councillors opposed the closure plans.

Southgate ward councillor Elisa Morreale said: “Despite the overwhelming negative response to the consultation, Enfield’s Labour group are steaming ahead with this anyway.”

The Tory councillor accused the council of “doing whatever they want” and said the move had caused a “huge amount of upset to residents” despite “ a very minimal cost saving”.

Fellow Southgate ward councilor Chris Joannides said that in the last few months the proposed closure of Southgate Library had been a “key component in my daily casework”.

Labour councillor Doug Taylor defended the cuts, saying Enfield’s “connectivity” as an urban area was a “significant part of the library strategy”. The former leader also pointed out that the borough currently had significantly more council-run libraries than neighbouring boroughs, with Haringey having nine and Waltham Forest having eight, while Barnet has 14.

Cllr Taylor said: “From 2010 onwards we not only kept our libraries, we had more, we had 16, but we have to accept that year-on-year the financial situation of the council has been reduced because of government cuts.

“We can have a disagreement, it’s a great disappointment that we have to close the libraries, but I accept it, it’s the right thing to do.

“There are other pressures, pressures on the services we provide normally, in terms of social care, housing, tackling poverty, we have to do those things as well.”

However, Winchmore Hill’s Conservative councillor Lee Chamberlain accused the Labour group of falsely presenting the closure as an “improvement in services” and “denying why they have no money”.

Council leader Ergin Erbil said financial challenges were a “reality” and blamed the economic backdrop of 14 years of Conservative government leadership, from 2010 to 2024.

He said: “They’re hypocrites, they door-knocked for austerity, they door-knocked for public services to be decimated across our country. Take everything they say with a pinch of salt.”

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