HALTON Borough Council has seen a 24 per cent increase in people borrowing books, ebooks and e-audio over the last year.

There are now 25,000 active members of the library, up from 11,000 in the previous year with 360,000 issues, up from 290,000 in 2016-17.

Halton Borough Council's executive board member for libraries, Cllr Phil Harris, said: "This is great news. It shows our libraries are as relevant as ever. This rise is due because of our online services expanding and fiction continuing to be as popular as ever.

"Our libraries are pro-active and a glance at social media will show you the events staff plan on a daily basis to get people interested in reading."

Dozens of budding writers recently attended the launch of an anthology of short stories written by new writers at Halton Lea library.

The anthology was the result of the Write Time, Write Place creative writing course for beginners, which ran, during early 2018, in four Halton Borough Council local libraries: Widnes, Ditton, Runcorn and Halton Lea.

58 people attended the eight-week course and took part in workshops looking at topics such as setting the scene, building a character, using dialogue and designing a plot with the outcome to write their own short story.

This year's summer reading challenge, the 'Bonkers Beano Bonanza' is being held tomorrow, Thursday, at Widnes library.

The Beano themed bonanza includes lots of fun games, crafts and activities based on your favourite Beano characters.

This events will be followed by a weekly summer lunch club. All children attending the morning’s event will get a free pack lunch to eat in the library

See https://library.haltonbc.info/ or search for #Haltonreads on social media for more information.