Newnham Library
OUR LIBRARY
In 2010 the Parish Council has asked an independent group to look at the issues and obtain the views of Newnham residents.
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LATEST NEWS
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May 2012
4th May – We have received a request to meet and discuss terms. So progress is being made! Looks like we have to make a business case by the end of June.
2nd May – The Liberal Democrat call in seems to have failed – More on this on the FoCL web-site.
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April 2012
Plans to cut funding to seven Gloucestershire libraries have been put on hold after Liberal Democrat councillors challenged the move.
The party’s group at Shire Hall has invoked the county council’s ‘call-in’ procedure.
This will halt the authority’s latest libraries strategy from coming into force until its Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee has reviewed it, possibly at its meeting on May 29.
Read more here on the FOCL web site
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March 2012
The Gloucestershire County Council consultation has ended.
Decision day is April 5th
There is information about this on the FOGL website
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February 2012
This is an IMPORTANT update with a bit of news and some requests for a little of your time.
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January 2012
Gloucestershire County Council having been told their decision to close libraries was illegal, have now entered a new stage of discussion. The Library Services have prepared a new Draft Strategy for the County libraries. (You can view it here) This will be presented and discussed by the GCC cabinet on 20th January. If agreed there will be a further 6 weeks of consultation with all concerned. The offers made previously will be dropped and this will be a completely new approach. It is clear that the County is still planning to save money on running the Library and Newnham could still loose its library.
The new committee produced an initial response, but we must now wait for the consultation period to begin. We will do our best, and keep you posted on what happens next.
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November 23, 2011
7pm Meeting in The Armoury Hall Committee Room to form new group to support Library
You may have been at the meeting we held in The Armoury on Wednesday 9th November. You may also have expressed an interest in being part of a committee that will see where we go from here.
If you are not already aware of it, Gloucestershire County Council have been told to stop their planned closure of ten libraries throughout the County. Our view is that this will probably still leave us in the Land where the Limbos live! You can read more about this here and here. It is fairly obvious that as far as Cllr. Hawthorne is concerned, the County will still try to continue with the closures in some form.
As result we believe we should still progress our plans, so that we could take on a Community Library (if that is forced on us) and/or be part of a pressure group who are ready to deal with any future eventualities.
The plan is therefore to re-convene at 7pm next Wednesday (23rd, November), again in The Armoury, but this time upstairs in the Committee Room. The George Choir will be down stairs – so don’t get confused!
If you are happy to leave this to others, then that is fine. However, if you put your name forward to be part of a committee, then we hope you can make that time and date. If you are unable to come – but wish to be involved please let us know, and we will keep you notified.
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November 16, 2011
I’m absolutely delighted to tell you that Justice McKenna has this morning ruled in favour of Gloucestershire library users in the High Court on Equality grounds – this is a real vindication for our campaign which has long said that is it unfair to remove libraries from the most disadvantaged/vulnerable members of our communities.
What exactly this will mean for our libraries going forward is still under discussion by the QCs in court. This is all I know at the moment – I’ll let you know more detailed news as I get it from the texts and tweets coming in.
There is lots of media coverage already.
See FOGL twitter page for links as we get them https://twitter.com/#!/FOGLibraries
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NEWNHAM LIBRARY – PUBLIC MEETING
Thank you to everybody who turned out, there were about 40 people in the hall.
We are still writing up some minutes, and they will be published just as soon as we can.
The plan is to hold a meeting with all those who offered to help and be on a committee.
The date is yet to be agreed, but hopefully very soon.
The court decision on closing the libraries is now due on 16th November.
We’ ll let you know here as soon as we know.
This is an important issue and if you have an opinion on the future of the library, then please let us know your views by one means or other.
Our contact details are on the leaflet.
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Press Release – 4 NOVEMBER 2011 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
HIGH COURT WILL RULE ON LIBRARY CLOSURES IN GLOUCESTERSHIRE
AND SOMERSET ON WEDNESDAY 16 NOVEMBER 2011 AT 10AM
ROYAL COURTS OF JUSTICE, STRAND, LONDON
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Following the three day High Court hearing in September 2011, the challenge to library closures in Gloucestershire and Somerset is soon to be decided.
At 10am on Wednesday 16 November 2011, His Honour Judge McKenna will hand-down his judgment at a short hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London. Some of the many Somerset and Gloucestershire residents who have tirelessly campaigned in opposition to the cuts to their library service will attend the hearing to hear the result.
In Gloucestershire, the County Council proposes to withdraw funding from 10 of the previous 32 libraries, leaving their long-term future in doubt.
It plans to withdraw the much-loved mobile library service – a lifeline to isolated communities and elderly care home residents – altogether.
Similar cuts are proposed in Somerset, with 11 of 34 libraries due to lose their funding and 4 of 6 mobile libraries already off the road.
Injunctions obtained by Public Interest Lawyers in both cases have until now prevented the Councils from going ahead with their unpopular plans.
For more information please contact Daniel Carey on 0121 515 5069 or 07815
089526 or daniel.carey@publicinterestlawyers.co.uk.
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NEWNHAM LIBRARY UPDATE OCTOBER 2011
Members of the Newnham Library Group attended a meeting on Friday 7th October with representatives from the Gloucestershire County Council Library Services. GCC are still planning and organising themselves, ready to close libraries as soon as possible, on the assumption that the judge’s decision in the current legal case will be in their favour. No precise date has been given for this decision, but it is likely to be some time in October or November. We should be ready to respond, therefore we may soon need to take up any offers of help you may have made earlier in the year.
GCC is proposing to allow us a budget of £10,000 per annum, plus give us all the existing books, furniture and equipment. For our part we must undertake to staff the library and issue books just as happens now. We will also become responsible for paying the rent, keeping the premises in good repair, cleaning, heating, lighting and buying our own books. Among the earliest tasks we will need to undertake will be to form a management group, apply to become a registered charity, form a Friends of Newnham Library group. With volunteer help this should just about be possible. We also hope to have some
extra activities associated with the building which will benefit the village and allow us to raise additional funds.
As yet we have no legal agreement with GCC, and there are some matters relating to the current lease, that the Council must resolve before we agree to take on the building lease.
At our meeting last week, we were asked about timescales. It was clear that the County hopes to close the library by Christmas. Whether they can actually do that depends on the outcome of the legal case. In the event of
closure of the library we are likely to receive about 6 weeks’ notice. The only informal agreement we made at the meeting was that we would, if it became legally possible, complete any handover during February 2012. The advantage of this date is we should still receive the full £10,000 for this financial year. If it is left until after the end of March we will not.
So as things stand we still await a proper offer and legal terms of agreement from the County Council. We will keep you posted. If you would like more information or to become involved now, please contact Mike, Susan, Anna or Daphne
Regards
Mike
Latest news is that Gloucestershire County Council were served with an injunction to stop them progressing the county wide library closures. See this link to the FoGL (Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries) blog
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Here in Newnham like other libraries in the Forest and across the county threatened with closure, Newnham Library has been given enormous support by local residents, and there have, in addition, been warnings from retired professional librarians, lawyers and some county councillors that these library closures may be illegal. The High Court injunction prevents GCC from progressing with its plans until a court hearing on 7th July.
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Mark Hawthorne, the Leader of Gloucestershire Council, reacting to this injunction said ‘We have immediately asked for and have been granted a hearing on 7th July to challenge this decision’.
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This is untrue – the date was set by the courts, and GCC has been ordered to appear, not to challenge the injunction but for the judge to decide whether the case goes to court.
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Mark Hawthorne also said that community groups are ‘excited’ to be given the ‘opportunity’ to take on their libraries, and that these groups are ‘frustrated’ at the disruption that the legal challenge may cause to these plans. This is DEFINITELY not the case with Newnham nor, we’re sure, with other communities in the same position. We have submitted a business plan to run the branch as a community library, fearing that we would otherwise have no library at all, but Newnham residents would much rather the library stayed within the County Council system.
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You may also make your views known to any one of the following:- Anna Fedden, Susan Faircloth, Daphne Haig, Maggie Ellis, Pete Hood (Snr.) or Mike Penny.
Please write to the Parish Council as well so that they have some feel for the strength of opinion on this in the village.
The information on what Gloucestershire County Council would like to do can be found on their web site here.
Go to the bottom of their page to find the explanatory documents – which are fancifully called Meeting The Challenge!
The Save Our Library Group met Sue Laurence and Mark Parker from the Library Services in early January and again in April.
We put a great many questions to them, about what the options are for the future of our library.
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We have now had an initial offer from the County of a revenue stream of £10,000 for four years, from which we as a community will have to pay the rent, carry out repairs and provide staff too.
We are told that there is also about to be a new catalogue system sometime in April 2011.
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Help to save your local library!
Gloucestershire County Council no longer plans to run our library. They want the community to pay for and run it instead. If we can’t afford to take on this expensive and difficult task, the library will close. Once closed, we will never get the library back.
11 libraries face closure; 7 will open 3 hours a week; and a further 11 will only be open 3.5 days a week. All mobile libraries and services to housebound people will also be stopped. The most vulnerable members of the county will be particularly affected by these cuts.
The plans were based on a survey of only 0.86 percent of Gloucestershire’s residents. They are among the most severe cuts in the country. The council is planning something that has never been tried elsewhere: they are experimenting on us.
What can we do?
Thanks to everyone who signed any of the petitions – on or off line. As you may have read elsewhere this has raised over 10,000 signatures. The petition was handed to Gloucestershire County Council. The petition should secure, that the matter is debated and that we get five minutes to make our case - if we can say we have gathered ‘x’ more signatures since we handed in the first 10,000, this might help sway any wavering Councillors. Remember that the petition is only half the battle – we need to convince councillors to vote in favour of our proposed independent review of the plans for the libraries, so please contact your County Councillors and do your best to persuade them – The debate will be scheduled for February, so we need to move fast on this. Steve McMillan has pledged his support for our efforts, but is restrained by his Party. Mark Harper has sent us two letters the following is his second reply.
The petitions at the Post Office and Baileys Stores were sent off in early January, but please continue to sign the on-line petition – if you have not already done so, and encourage others too. More information about what is happening with the Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries campaign can be found here http://foclibrary.wordpress.comor by emailing focl@googlemail.com
Remember that the petition is only half the battle – we need to convince councillors to vote in favour of our proposed independent review of the plans for the libraries, so please contact your County Councillors and do your best to persuade them – The debate will be scheduled for mid-January, so we need to move fast on this.
Better than just signing a petition, please also write to Antonia Noble (the cabinet member responsible for libraries), Mark Harper (your MP) and/or Steve McMillan (our local county councillor). Copy your letter to the Parish Council. We also need to know you care. Their addresses and contact details can be found on our Parish Council page
PLEASE complete both of the County Council’s consultation exercises; the library survey and the overall budget survey. While we believe that both surveys are deeply flawed, the results will be used by the Council to judge community responses to the cuts proposals, so it is essential that we make our voices heard.
Here are some public comments
We still need libraries in the digital age. Public libraries have a vital role bridging the digital divide and teaching people how to get reliable information from the internet
by Ian Clark in the Guardian.
Libraries are a bridge between the information-rich and the information-poor. They need reinforcing, not dismantling. We need to continue to provide a highly skilled service that is able to meet the needs of the general public. The service ought to continue to innovate to take advantage of the way in which people are interacting with the service in a different way. It needs to continue to bridge the gap between those who have access to the internet and those who do not, while also ensuring it delivers on other aspects of its core service (book loans, local studies materials, etc). If the service is cut, we run the risk of an ill-informed society that is ill-equipped to prosper in the “information age” – a dangerous prospect for any democracy.
Terence Blacker: Hands off our public libraries – The Independent
A country’s public library service is a sure indicator of how highly it values its citizens, its children and its future. There may well be a place for the new localism around the outer fringes of the service – the library is a focus of local life, after all – but, if the Government allows it to slip into decline in the hollow name of community, Ed Vaizey’s promises and his boss’s Big Society will be exposed as a heartless sham.
One more thing if you would like to support our efforts and promote this campaign – please download this poster and display it in your window. Thank you.
Save Our Library Poster
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High Street, Newnham,
Gloucestershire GL14 1BB
Tel. (01594) 516296
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Opening Hours
Monday………… 10:30 – 12:30 … 2:00 – 4:30
Tuesday………… Closed
Wednesday……. Closed
Thursday………………………………….. 2:00 – 4:30
…………………………………………………. 5:30 – 7:00
Friday…………. Closed
Saturday………. 10:30 – 12:30
If you know your borrower number, you can renew your books on line
The library also has two computers for access to the internet.
NOT FOR MUCH LONGER – THE COUNTY COUNCIL WANT TO CLOSE THIS LIBRARY