21st April 2011

WEYMOUTH: Councillors' anger as five local libraries face losing their funds

By Harry Walton

A MAJOR debate will be held tonight (Thursday) on county proposals to scrap cash support for twenty local libraries.

Furious Weymouth and Portland councillors claim this would badly damage communities and hurt those who need books and other library facilities the most.

The warning ahead of tonight’s full council meeting came from scrutiny committee members who had met to draft their response to county proposals for even more library cuts on top of £1 million found since 2007.

They had been told that latest cutbacks looked to trim another £800,000 from the library service with county funding only continued for 14 key libraries including Weymouth, Dorchester and Bridport.

The grim action plan also proposes to withdraw funding from 20 other libraries including Chickerell, Littlemoor, Tophill, Underhill and Wyke Regis in the Weymouth and Portland area. Others facing the funding axe include Beaminster, Burton Bradstock, Charmouth and Lyme Regis.

The county council had asked Scrutiny members for their views on how the savings could be achieved by the library service, but members felt the issue was so important that they asked for it to be debated by full council as an urgent item.

Condemnation of the way the issue had been approached by county was led by chairman Councillor Margaret Leicester who said: “A lot of people throughout the borough are going to suffer greatly because of this. It will effectively leave 64,000 people with one library.

“It will also mean that some people will have to travel at least ten miles to get to a library and it will disenfranchise old and young alike.”

Councillor Simon Bowkett agreed and said: “An area like Littlemoor is unlikely to have the resources within the community to run a library.

“More deprived wards just won’t be able to do it without significant investment in infrastructure because libraries are not just about books. Local libraries are a vital point of contact for Internet access, particularly for people who cannot afford broadband.

“As ward councillor for Littlemoor I am disgusted with these proposals and I have told the county council so.”

Councillor Graham Winter said it was “a sham and disgraceful” that councillors were only now being asked for their views and the meeting had no hesitation in asking for the issue to be moved to full council for debate as an urgent item.

WEYMOUTH: Councillors' anger as five local libraries face losing their funds

Comments

Add new comment