Walcot Library :
When the closure of four branch libraries was announced earlier this year, Walcot Library was taken out of the picture As far as we know there was no consultation about this – the ultimatum was either to close it or have it run by volunteers. This arrangement is now in operation, relying on the dedication of a particular local Tory ward councillor without whom the project would founder. The library provides a much reduced service to the people of the area, as it has been combined with the local Charity Shop and opens only in the mornings. The Shop and its volunteers have moved into the Library premises and are merely custodians of the books – the actual answering of queries and administration is undertaken by nearby Parks Library and the Central Library. It is feared that if this experiment fails in the future, the Library will close without further consultation and residents will lose it and their community shop when the site is ‘redeveloped’.

In a deprived area such as East Walcot with very few, if any, community facilities, a full library service is important. Borrowing figures may be low, but that should not justify defeatism. The area should get a full service and usage of the library actively encouraged. One thing that has disappeared under this new regime is the facility for children to use the computers for their homework, since the new library hours do not permit this. The Minister should note that representations from very concerned residents were recently made to the consultants, ERS.

Volunteers:
If the Minister is referring to Somersham Library in Cambridgeshire, we suggest that central and local government can take no credit for its considerable success. That success is wholly due to the dedication of the citizenry of Somersham who opposed the proposed closure of their branch library in November 2002. The library developed its current structure only once closure was confirmed. Friends of Somersham Library are fortunate to live in a village where there is enough expertise and experience amongst residents to allow for a strong library management team. We understand that, in its early days, a small group of volunteers was responsible for most tasks, but that duties have since been delegated to teams of volunteers responsible for fundraising, maintenance, bookbuying, book processing, manning the library for 23 hours per week, etc.

Somersham, Cambridgeshire, is not typical; it is a special case. It is reckless to suggest that it can be a model for volunteering throughout the country. Walcot, for example, is not Somersham.

The Minister also cites Dorset as a template for volunteering. The Minister should inquire how Dorset has arranged this. Volunteers from ‘friends’ groups in the rural villages of Puddletown and Burton Bradstock have taken over merely four hours per week on a voluntary, unpaid basis, with the support and encouragement of their county council — in both cases supplying fewer than half the hours that the two branches are open. They still have a professional librarian for more than half their library’s total opening hours. The Chair of Friends of Puddletown Library wrote to me in December, as follows :

“What I can offer is a warning of the Orwellian doublespeak of your council. They have asked your organisation, it seems, to take over, as volunteer librarians, the whole 18 hours that your branch is open ‘on the Dorset model.’ Such an arduous undertaking is far removed from the reality of the Dorset model.”

I suggest that the Minister has also been incorrectly advised with regard to Dorset: what is proposed for Swindon’s branch libraries bears absolutely no comparison with what is going on in Dorset.

It is dismaying to note that DCMS has not done its homework very thoroughly.