Lambeth Council is preparing to relocate Waterloo Library to a temporary site on Wootton Street amid financial difficulties, writes Romilly Schulte…
They have pledged that the move will serve the Waterloo community in a bigger and better location, after the availability of its current home in Kennington Road’s Oasis Centre has come to an end.
Lambeth Council has ten libraries, as well as Lambeth Archives in Brixton Hill, and invests £4 million annually into these services, which they say ensures that the buildings are up to scratch and well-staffed by trained librarians.
Cllr Donatus Anyanwu, who is Lambeth’s Cabinet Member for Stronger Communities, said: “Waterloo has gone from having a temporary library in a portacabin more than a decade ago, to services in a community centre to the latest proposal for a council run stand-alone library in the heart of Waterloo.
“This is an incredibly difficult time for the council financially, and for local authorities across London, but we are determined to protect the frontline services out residents have told us they value the most.”
The new library on Whootton Street will be in use for a minimum of 18 months while the council works on pinning down a permanent location in Waterloo, and they have applied for planning permission so that they can carry out this intermediary relocation as quickly as possible.
Since 2016, Waterloo’s library has been at the Oasis Centre, which is run by a charitable organisation that provides aid in education, homelessness youth justice and human-trafficking prevent to local neighbourhoods across the country.
Providing library services in the Oasis Centre followed aims to improve on facilities in the Waterloo area to meet the needs to local residents.
Libraries elsewhere in Lambeth have seen a significant amount of improvement works in the last few years: in 2025, Stockwell’s Tate South Lambeth Library re-opened after a £360,000 investment to restore its original Victorian features and to install new toilets and heat pumps.
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Brixton Library also saw £1 million go into its improvement programme in 2024, with Durning Library, Carnegie Library, Minet Library and Streatham Library also receiving improvement works in the last year.
