The council has a statutory duty to retain a certain amount of libraries in the city. Library closures (across the country) have been a savings option discussion since George Gideon Oliver Osborne, son of Sir Peter Osborne, 17th Baronet of Ballentaylor and Ballylemon and Felicity Alexandra Loxton-Peacock, educated at St. Paul's and Magdalen College, Oxford's evil austerity project. Liverpool has had to consider it every year for 14 years. Often savings aren't as big as expected because mothballing the building still has costs, you just save some staffing wages which isn't commensurate to running a full library.
However, after years of this Tory govt hard decisions have to be made. Everything has been considered and exhausted. Footfall rather than districting will have been considered. So a non-statutory, low use library becomes a final easy target in an already vulnerable and poverty stricken community. Tory Britain.
Of course you can contrast these savings against the ridiculous expenditure this council is currently making on interims, Commissioners and ongoing consultants costs. Irrespective of what the Mayor says about reducing interim posts, under her they have increased more than significantly. And consultants are attaching their invoices to officers memos of improvement.