Trafford becomes first UK council to abolish all library fines

Greater Manchester borough hopes to ‘send a welcome message to our residents that they will have a completely free library service’

Library members in Trafford who have mislaid their copies of Harry Potter or Stephen King will no longer have to fear financial punishment after the council announced that it would be abolishing library fines altogether.

In a first for a UK borough, the council said in a statement that fines can be “off-putting for customers”, and it hopes the change, which will see library fines eliminated across Trafford for all ages from April, will lead to “a further increase in usage of libraries across the borough”.

Related: School library book returned more than 120 years late – with no fine

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