Save ‘jewels in the crown’

Unite Community members in Huddersfield have vowed to “keep fighting for properly funded public libraries” after Kirklees Council pushed through major cuts in the service.

In September the council announced plans to close two libraries and the mobile service. There would also be reductions in staffing hours at all 24 remaining libraries and, of which, 16 would only remain open if volunteers could be found to support just one paid staff member at each.

As many as 100 jobs are likely to be lost with some libraries also transferred out of public ownership.

Faced with such dramatic changes, Unite Community then swung into action with a highly public campaign. This attracted the backing of well known Oxford University poet Simon Armitage who said: “Libraries are an essential service and part of every community’s identity and play an important cultural and democratic presence in our society.”

In a few short weeks over 2,500 signatures were collected on a petition urging Kirklees Council to reconsider their drastic moves and ‘stand up to a bullying government’ that’s attacking all our public services.

Unite Community members also pointed out that the Labour led council was sitting on a significant cash reserve of over ÂŁ100m and requested that ÂŁ1.8m of this be used to maintain the libraries as they currently are for the next two years.

When opposition councillors, including, very hypocritically, the Tory ones, requested that the council’s scrutiny committee review the plans then Unite Community held a well attended, highly visible protest at the subsequent October meeting.

However, this failed to move councillors who made only minor changes, which were confirmed on  November 17 by senior councillors.

Now just eight core libraries will now remain in Kirklees, which has a (time-frame ensures we get copy from policy conference included)population of over 420,000, with the remaining 16 dependent on volunteers. In a handful of locations there does appear to be an appetite to volunteer.

However, where volunteer levels fall in any library by over 25 per cent in a three month period then a report will be submitted for senior councillors to consider its closure. This will undoubtedly place strain on volunteers to keep ‘volunteering’ and paves the way for future closures.

Deeply concerned

Small wonder that Unite Community members are deeply concerned with spokesperson June Holmes saying, “many jobs are going, some libraries will be lost forever and others will only survive with volunteers.

“Yet a report by the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce showed that the number of library users nationally is falling as there are many less libraries. In Leicester where they piloted the use of library volunteers the numbers had collapsed from 381 in 2010 to 141 by last year. There is also less volunteering in more deprived communities that clearly need libraries the most.

“Public libraries were once the jewel in the crown. They are being stripped away by the Conservatives for ideological reasons. Kirklees Labour councillors, rather than implementing cuts, should be leading a fightback alongside us and keep fighting for properly funded public libraries as otherwise these great places of knowledge will be wrecked as part of a general attack on public services.”