"No more books" urges community library after deluge of donations

The telephone box in Beckley, a village near Rye, was converted into a community library after being sold to the parish council. In the past year, the box has received a “deluge” of books, parish councillor Natasha Vadorin said.

Natasha said: “In the last year it has been used as a dumping ground. A few weeks ago, we had 150 books dumped in one go. I’s becoming unusable – the more books there are in it, the less people can see.

“The volunteers maintaining it have said isn’t working – it’s overflowing, and it’s become the local tip.”

The telephone box library in tidier times (Image: Submitted) Since 2008, BT’s Adopt a Kiosk scheme has allowed communities to purchase its redundant phone boxes for £1, with many towns and villages  making use of the spaces to create libraries for locals.

Now, however, Natasha believes people are taking advantage of the fact the library is unmanned and volunteers are urging residents to borrow, rather than donate.

She said: “One of the books which was recently donated was on tax accounting from 1989. People don’t want to throw away books – which I understand – but charity shops won’t take books like that, so they’re stuck with them and don’t know what to do.

“They think they’re doing a good thing, but they’re not.”