Church Stretton residents show support against plans to move library
Over 200 people yesterday attended a public meeting in Church Stretton sending a strong message to Shropshire Council not to move the town's library.
A packed public meeting, with standing room only, at the Silvester Horne Institute saw residents listing to the facts behind the proposed relocation of the town centre library to Church Stretton School almost half a mile away.
The audience put a large number of important questions to Shropshire Council officers, the headmaster of the school and Councillor David Evans of Shropshire Council.
A presentation by Church Stretton Library Support Group emphasised that the relocation was much more than relocation, with decision making on library matters transferring from a professional library service accountable to councillors to an unelected non-accountable academy and based on a “Service level Agreement” that is not publicly available to view.
The meeting was organised by Church Stretton Support Group after Shropshire Council refused a request that it should organise its own. The evening marked another milestone in the rapidly developing campaign to keep the library where it is. During the course of the evening a petition against the council's plans also passed the 1,000 signature mark.
Commenting on the public meeting and the petition, Felicity Thomas, a spokesperson for the Church Stretton Library Support Group said:
“We expected a large turnout at this public meeting and a very good response to our petition but we are delighted and impressed with the residents and library users of Church Stretton for turning out in force on a cold winters evening and arriving at 1000 signatures on a petition and both on the same day.
"We urge Shropshire Council to take note of this intelligent, polite, expression of a clear community “ask”. It would be a major blow to common sense and democracy in Shropshire if the Council cast aside such an overwhelming expression of community support for keeping the library where it is.
“The library support group made it very clear that whilst it is totally opposed to the relocation plan it is not afraid of change and will present a number of options to Shropshire Council showing how it can deliver budget cuts in a fair and proportionate way in library services without relocating our library.”
The planned move would save Shropshire Council £13,000 a year in building costs and £35,000 in staffing costs.
