Cardiff Council owed £55,000 in overdue library fines

Libraries across Cardiff are owed more than £50,000 in unpaid book fines.

The 19 Cardiff libraries are owed a combined total of £55,643.76 in late book return fines for the last year.

Cardiff Central Library is owed the highest amount with a total of  £29,859.63 outstanding in library charges.

Penylan Library has the second highest outstanding library fines at £3,644.41.

Cardiff Central Library, based in The Hayes part of the city centre has more than 100,000 items, with 90,000 books and 10,000 CDs and DVDs.

The daily charge for out-of-date items stands at 13p a day for books, 26p for CDs and 50p for DVDs. Fees are capped at £10, so library users could have a book for 769 days before being charged the maximum amount, after which point their fines will cease to increase.

The library has set up a text and email reminder service for customers to encourage them to return to return items. But with libraries dependant on the customers' community spirit  it seems they may be having some difficulty getting these fines paid.   

A Cardiff Council spokesperson said: "When joining a Cardiff library and also when borrowing items, customers are made aware of when the item is due back. Unfortunately not all users return items on time for a wide variety of reasons, something which is experienced by libraries across the country."

"Escalating postage costs have meant that we do not send out reminders as frequently as we used to, and we limit reminders to customers with significantly high levels of fines or valuable items we particularly want returned.

"Fines are set to encourage people to return items as quickly as possible. Customers with items that are overdue are barred from borrowing any other items until the items have been returned and their fines have been paid."

View Cardiff libraries in a larger map

Llanishen Library had the lowest unpaid fines of all Cardiff libraries with only £141.85 owed to them.

Llanishen conservative councillor, Craig Piper said: "As a party we are looking at value for money for Cardiff tax payers. The collection of library fees can affect the council tax rates and has the potential to lower them."

"The fine figure stuck me as being high, but I am sure people forget to return library books from time to time but and the number of fees can have an effect on tax rates. We would like the council to reduce rates and reducing outstanding library fines can help this."

If these outstanding fines were to be paid, Cardiff libraries would be able to purchase almost 8,000 news books, at an average cost of £7 per book.