World Book Day was marked at Watlington Community Primary School by the official opening of a refurbished school library by the borough Mayor.
Mayor of King’s Lynn & West Norfolk, Cllr Paul Bland, who opened the revamped library said: “Watlington Community Primary School received £18,000 of community infrastructure levy (CIL) funding from the borough council to refurbish its library to the benefit of the school and local community. What a wonderful day to open it, surrounded by the children dressed up as their favourite literary character.”
Claire Chapman, Headteacher of Watlington Community Primary, said: “We are so pleased to welcome the Mayor to see our wonderful newly refurbished library. We are very grateful for the funding received from the CIL levy without it we couldn’t have achieved all this. I also want to thank our amazing PTA for their hours of hard work fundraising towards this project, it contributed so much towards the project and continues to. It is so important to our school to have this space; we value reading and wish to encourage our children to develop a lifelong love of reading. We feel that having a new library where children can read and enjoy books is vital in working towards this goal and a fundamental part of children’s education.”
CIL is funded through a levy on local development that is then used for projects that benefit communities across West Norfolk and decided at a CIL spending panel. The funding for the renovated school library was awarded at the spending panel meeting held on 17 February 2025.
Cllr Jim Moriarty, Cabinet member for Planning and Licensing which includes CIL funding allocation, added: “CIL funding helps towards delivering two of the council’s key priorities for the area, supporting communities and promoting growth and prosperity in West Norfolk.
“Its current focus is on helping communities to pay for local infrastructure – in practice this usually means something like a community amenity that can be widely enjoyed, like this school library that I’m sure will be enjoyed by students and the wider community in Watlington.”
