Council bosses in libraries pledge
ANEWLY-ELECTED Tory councillor has vowed to stand by the party’s election pledges and reinstate library funding.
Three new Conservative county councillors were elected in Rossendale at the Lancashire County Council (LCC) elections earlier this month.
Conservative group leader Coun Geoff Driver had pledged before the election to re-open libraries closed by the Labour administration, and support new community-run libraries with ‘financial and professional advice’.
New Whitworth and Bacup county councillor Peter Steen told the Free Press, which launched a ‘Hands off our Libraries’ campaign in 2015, his party would reinstate both towns’ libraries to their fully-serviced status.
He said: “The libraries are a manifesto commitment. They will be fully funded as they were in the past and will stay open as councilfunded libraries.
“All libraries will be funded fully as they were – that’s one pledge I will be pushing with and making sure the leadership stick with. Those community groups that have taken on the running of some libraries will be fully supported to ensure those services continue.”
Initially, five Valley libraries were at risk. LCC then announced that Rawtenstall and Haslingden libraries were safe, before agreeing a community asset transfer for the Crawshawbooth Community Association to take over Crawshawbooth Library and Community Centre last December.
That left Bacup and Whitworth as the last libraries under threat.
Sue Nielson, from the Friends of Whitworth library group said: “If they can return it to a fully serviced library then that’s brilliant. It should be county council-run so it can have the full range of services, but we will have to see what the outcome of discussions with the new portfolio holder is and whether they can actually fulfil this pledge.
“Whatever happens we are fighting because so much more is happening in the library. I just hope that we can continue to keep going because it is such a community asset.”
Coun Andy MacNae, who lives in Bacup, said his Labour group would be holding the Tories to account over election pledges.
He said: “They made massive promises on roads and libraries and buses. The other promise was Helmshore Textile Museum. They were extremely critical and largely implied that libraries and museums would be reopened.
“We want to see them stay true to those promises. We are actually in a better position with the libraries than other areas. We know the scale of cuts from central government – £635 million – and I know how hard our county councillors worked to try and maintain services while balancing the books.”