Angela Supporting our local Libraries

26 February 2015

 

Our local libraries are a huge asset to our communities acting as a hub for much community activity and a resource for information and of course books ! Here Angela talks about her passion for reading and the importance of defending our libraries currently under threat due to central government cuts. These institutions across the city are under threat lets state with one voice loud and clear hands of our libraries !

Burgess Road library is also under threat and our candidate Ian Callaghan is actively engaged with this campaign group as part of our campaign in Romsey and Southampton North. Across the city Green candidates are engaging with local communities and lending them our voice !

 Click on Image to hear ahout Angelas Passion for books.

"On Monday evening I participated in the Friends of Cobbett Rd Library event at the Church of the Ascension. The meeting was for local people to consider options for saving the vital Cobbett Road Library and its community services, which are under a very real threat of closure.
The hall was absolutely packed with what must have been nearly 100 members of the community who had gathered to put their views to the officials and elected members from Southampton City Council. The passion and strength of feeling was intense. There was genuine anguish at the prospect of losing the library and a real hunger to come together to rescue it. But also a huge sense of trepidation at the proposal of a ‘community asset transfer scheme’.

How on earth could local people with jobs, families and commitments take on the role of managing the fabric and services of the library? Recruiting and coordinating volunteers; fundraising; liaising with other service users and agencies; managing the IT infrastructure and lending systems? Other ideas such as hosting a health hub, drawing in funds from the local CCG, offering a coffee shop franchise, and introducing membership fees were all discussed.

The overwhelming feeling of the meeting was that these ideas should be taken on board by the Council, who should retain responsibility for the library, and work with the community in securing alternative funding streams.

We need to invest in the public services that nourish our communities and keep them in our hands – the public hands. There has to be a solution. The message I took away was that the passion and commitment of the local community, if nothing else, will secure the future of Cobbett Rd Library

Please support their campaign on social media:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Friends-of-Cobbett-Road-Library/285470244806828
https://twitter.com/FoCRL

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