Campaigners have launched a bid to raise £25,000 to fund the reopening of Barham Park Library after the council marketed the old building.

The Friends of Barham Library is encouraging 1,000 people and businesses to donate £25 each so it can raise enough cash to rival commercial bids for the old building in the Harrow Road park and run a volunteer-led community library.

Brent Council closed the facility – which has been open for 59 years – along with five others last October, blaming massive reductions in Government funding, despite huge opposition and legal bids to stop the move.

It is now advertising the 291 sq m building, which is one of seven plots in the park for let, for just less than £14,000 a year in rent, with a suggestion it could be run as a café, restaurant, nursery, gym or studio amongst other uses.

Any applicants must submit their proposal by September 12, and campaigners want to raise the £25,000 they estimate it would cost in total to pay rent and running costs for a library.

Francis Henry, 47, of Compton Avenue, who gives his time at the temporary volunteer library that campaigners run in a building in Wembley High Road with his seven-year-old daughter Gabriella, said he wanted to save a community facility.

He added: “Barham Park Library was our local library, within walking distance of our home, and therefore ideal for my seven-year-old and other children to go it.

“We want our library back and hope that other local businesses and residents will donate generously and be part of our crusade.”

Liberal Democrat leader Paul Lorber, who volunteers at the temporary library and opposed the closures, is also backing the campaign.

Brent Council has said that the library transformation program will eventually result in the borough’s six remaining libraries having more books and DVDs, and better IT equipment.