Councillors have unanimously backed plans to improve literacy and help increase reading for pleasure in Hartlepool.
A motion to the latest full meeting of Hartlepool Borough Council highlighted how “literacy is a right, not a privilege” and that every resident “should have the opportunity to gain this critical skill”.
Put forward by Labour councillors after the government designated 2026 as the ‘National Year of Reading’, it will see the local authority take steps to increase “reading for pleasure” in the town.
Measures include supporting the establishment of community mini-library book exchanges in every ward.
This will be carried out in partnership with local businesses, including Lyndsay Hogg, co-founder of Hogg Global Logistics, who is the steward of the “little library” in Worset Lane and has helped secure books for each site from Penguin.
Additionally the council will ensure all children attending Hartlepool primary schools are enrolled as library members, with support for families facing barriers to access.
Council leader and literacy champion Councillor Pamela Hargreaves, who proposed the motion, highlighted how one in three adults in Hartlepool are “functionally illiterate” and the average reading age in the borough is “around seven”.
She added: “Without being able to read the world is a scary place, everywhere that you go and everything that you want to do involves some instruction or reading something.
“We have to destigmatise it, we have to help people learn and we have to drive forward this.”
The motion was unanimously supported and will see the council continue to back the borough’s literacy task force, champion other reading initiatives and work to embed plain-English standards across all public-facing communications.
They will also ensure all council employees are offered the opportunity to achieve an English Level 2 qualification.
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