FIGHT "NOT OVER YET" FOR DUDLEY LIBRARIES

29-10-2007

Plans to shut more than quarter of the libraries in Dudley and sell them off for housing could still be "called in" by the government a local MP has warned. Lynda Waltho insists she'll carry on fighting the proposals, which she describes as "an absolute nonsense".

Dudley Council insists that the five libraries to close (out of 18) only account for 6% of books issued in the borough and that keeping them open "is an inefficient use of resources".

The quintet - at Dudley Wood, Woodside, Quarry Bank, Amblecote and Wall Heath - will be replaced by "Library Links" (ie a few shelves of books) placed in existing community facilities, and which will be staffed for just 10 hours a week.

These will allow people to order and collect books - but will, of course, deny them the pleasure of browsing and discovering new titles that they had never previously considered.

Dudley justifies wielding the axe on the basis that the number of registered library users has plummeted from 88,000 a decade ago to 63,000 now.

They promise that all of the cash raised will be re-invested in new services (including a new library at Brierley Hill) as well as refurbishing their existing buildings

That doesn't satisy Waltho, who has already raised the issue in a Commons debate with Libraries Minister Margaret Hodge.

The Stourbridge MP told The Stirrer: "Margaret Hodge has said that there are times when closing libraries to make the service better across the borough might be the way forward - but that's not the case here.

"All they'll be doing is replacing a whole library with a few shelves of books, and unless you find what you want there, you'll have to make an order, then come back the next day to collect it.

"Compare that with what we've got now at Quarry Bank, where we have coffee mornings, writers' mornings, toddlers' mornings. It's a complete nonsense to say that getting rid of that can be an improvement to the service.

"It might tick boxes in terms of access to books, but it actually reduces access in parts of my constituency where there's low book ownership and low computer ownership."

Waltho is now lobbying Hodge to use her powers under the 1964 Libraries Act to "call in" the proposal before it gets the final go-ahead from Conservative-run Dudley Council next month.

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