Verbal and threatening abuse accounted for more than half of health and safety incidents reported across Lewisham’s libraries between October 2024 and September 2025. The South London borough saw a 10.2 per cent increase in the number of health and safety incidents during the same time period, with abuse accounting for 57.4 per cent of all incidents.
According to a council report, one human bite incident and one assault by pupil/client on another pupil/client were recorded for the first time, while assaults by members of the public on library staff remained the same as the previous period (October 2023 to September 2024).
The report went on to state that extra steps are being taken regarding CCTV and the identification of offenders will soon start. A Banning Policy is also in place which the library service uses alongside Byelaws. During a health and safety committee meeting last week (February 3), Sidra Hill-Reid, Head of Community Education and Cultural Assets, said a majority of incidents are occurring at Catford Library with many being driven by anti-social behaviour (ASB).
Ms Hill-Reid told committee members: “Library staff do deal with an increased amount of ASB, whether it be around using the toilets and them being misused for drug use – security staff and library staff will try and intervene and say, look, you know, because we end up with the toilets being vandalised and then shut to the public and they’re one of the only public toilets in the area for people.
“So it’s really important that we can maintain a safe environment for library users and for our staff. So, really, that’s what it’s been down to and it is a startling amount of incidents that we report and that our staff experience on a daily basis. We issue banning letters as well to ensure that, again, we can enforce a safe environment for library users and our staff.”
Later on in the meeting, Ms Hill-Reid said: “Libraries are one of the only remaining places that are free at the point of access and we view them as Andrew Carnegie did, as the people’s palaces. They are the only place people can go to to just be, to read a book, to engage in some form of creativity, to have digital access, to get information, and we don’t want to lose that. We never want to lose that for people.”
She added: “But people do need to respect the library Byelaws so that they can continue to be free, engaging, welcoming environments for everybody.”
Cllr Laura Cunningham, who sits on the health and safety committee, later said: “We take our grandchild now to the Rhyme Time [at Catford Library] once a week, and it is absolutely delightful and it’s full of really lovely little tots joining in with a really great officer from Lewisham Council running it.
“Every time I’ve been there, it is full of people who are enjoying the library and enjoying the books. So if you go at that time on a Monday morning, you don’t see ASB.”
She added: “The staff are really lovely and the loos are clean, so I don’t want people who might be watching this at home to think, well, that sounds an absolute dump. It absolutely isn’t.”
