A city-wide campaign has been started to try to save three community libraries from being closed.
Brighton and Hove City Council has proposed permanently shutting three libraries to save £250,000 over two years.
The council currently spends £3.7 million a year on the library service.
Sarah Craven-Antill set up the petition – Stop the Closure of Brighton’s Community Libraries – on the Change.org website.
She has already started a campaign to protect Rottingdean library from council cuts but wants to expand the campaign city-wide.
The Rottingdean petition has attracted more than 2,250 signatures – more than the 1,250 required to trigger a council debate.
Now Mrs Craven-Antill wants to show same support for all libraries with the new petition which has more than 12) signatures already.
Her inspiration to save library services comes from her mother-in-law Sue Antill who campaigned to keep the children’s library open 35 to 40 years ago.
In the petition, Mrs Craven-Antill, 35, said: “The library is a generational space where young and old come together, united by their love of reading and learning.
“In an era where isolation is a growing concern, especially among first-time parents and seniors, the library offers a welcoming environment for conversation, connection and shared experiences.”
The council said that it was carrying out a “needs and use” analysis and it would then consult the public.
Mrs Craven-Antill is urging people to join Libraries Extra and use the service before it is too late.
The council is also looking to cut costs by reducing the opening hours at the flagship Jubilee Library, in Brighton, and the Carnegie Library, in Hove.
The petition to Stop the Closure of Brighton’s Community Libraries is on the Change.org website.
A petition only goes so far. The best thing is to get readers to write to opposition councillors (do not bother with administration councillors as that only tips them off) and also get prominent posters in residents’ windows. Alas, there is no longer a committee system and the opportunity to ask telling questions. But campaigns for the next local elections begin soon and it is now a chance to contact opposition councillors to useful effect. Meanwhile, I do not know what clout Rottingdean parish council might have.
Probably more clout than your opposition councillors, who have little to none and are as confused as ever.
People need to face up to change here.
Either a library becomes a community centre and digital hub, perhaps with a cafe, or else it dies along with its older book readers.
I am still a book reader, but I haven’t used a library to access my reading material for decades.
The idea that we keep these old buildings going for some sort of nostalgia reasons, is just silly.
I live in Hove, but I go to the Brighton library in the city centre, and not the Hove one.
I think that’s a very pragmatic approach. A library “just” being a library is a trickier justification compared to a much broader usage banner of community centre.
Taking that a step further, foster a new CIO or CIC to take on the project – that’ll certainly help to make a building like that more viable, since the VCSE is typically has a better paradigm.
A Labour council closing libraries and cutting hours is just wrong though and something that cannot be squared. It’s austerity and shortsighted.
Caitlin Moran makes some really good points on the importance of libraries:
“A library in the middle of a community is a cross between an emergency exit, a life-raft and a festival. They are cathedrals of the mind; hospitals of the soul; theme parks of the imagination. On a cold rainy island, they are the only sheltered public spaces where you are not a consumer, but a citizen instead”
She makes the point that for many people who find their homes unwelcoming, or even dangerous, libraries were the “one place you can go where you feel safe and as rich as a millionaire” even if you do not have much money. “That’s a power we don’t have anywhere else in our lives if you have no money, particularly if you’re a child,”
For many people the pragmatic view is that we will all be poorer when libraries close and that the shortsighted view is not recognising their value.
£3.7 million? So how much is being spent per unique user of the service?
Libraries are historic and where I learnt to read. But they have gone the way of the steam train. An expensive luxury now when budgets are tight.
Totally agree – libraries, as a place to store books, are now a luxury used by a few entitled residents as their own private book store where they can get titles ordered, and the rest of us fund their leisure activities.
As community hubs where council services are offered and the librarians retrainred, desk space for students, places to stay warm, get a coffee, nurseries, or public toilets, they may have a purpose.
They have tried to diversify into CD and video libraries and now providing services for borrowing eBooks and audio books, but these can be provided without physical buildings.
Attempts to rationalise council buildings result in emotional protests unsupported by data to reflect usage. The recent close of the Mile Oak library was a case in point where it was costing £20 for every visit by residents.
Time to move on.
Billy Short uses the first person more than necessary. He would do better than taking that solipsistic approach by looking at the array of books in a bookshop. Such abundance should be available to those who go to public libraries. Books could be the unique allure of a library rather than yet another bad-coffee machine.
Love your pretentious use of archaic English an attempt to impress 😉
Yes, Billy expressed his personal views, but who elected you to speak on behalf of others in regards to this?
Perhaps some actual usage numbers of the Rottingdean library together with cost per visit, rather than a petition on change.org would be useful?
And why didn’t they use the council’s ePetition system to ensure that only locals can respond rather than, potentially, library activists from all over the UK?
Billy short, just because YOU don’t use the libraries, doesn’t mean other people don’t!
They are invaluable spaces to book readers, parents with young children, lonely people etc.
We should be promoting this service to young children, a book is better than a mobile phone, in my opinion, and I totally agree with Christopher hawtree👍
To infer that only old people use the libraries is ridiculous!
Karen, I didn’t say I don’t use libraries, and nor would I say that kids should be using phones.
What I meant is that we are facing a losing battle if trying to save traditional libraries based on the book reading habits and study needs of a previous generation.
Well done to this resident. We can all see what the council are doing. Just the other day they spoke about closing face to face services at Bart’s House and moving them to libraries, and then they make separate decisions to review opening hours and reduce them in community libraries and consider closing others.
Libraries are such vital and important community hubs, not only does the prospect of reducing hours or closing libraries once again add to the council administration’s assault on some of the most vulnerable residents, it goes against their 2023 manifesto. In that they gave the impression that not only would libraries be protected, but that they would look to turn many underused community halls into community hubs where information could be shared. They said:
“Our libraries, which already provide information about council and community services, along with many underused rooms and halls and churches in our neighbourhoods, can be developed into places where people can meet, find information and advice, share activities.”
Two years in and we’re now looking at a fight to protect our libraries from closure and face to face customer services at the council are at risk of being whittled down further.
I contacted my councillors weeks ago when the cuts were first announced so this is not new. I wish someone had contacted me from this newspapers to discuss the matter as I have had replies and have actual figures to quote.
On another note. Hove Library does NOT belong to the council it belongs to the PEOPLE of Hove as it was bequeathed to them.
This is horrific. BHCC are not even thinking about the massive youth mental health crisis and educational damage done to children through lockdowns and how many are up to two years behind educational milestones as a result. Nor are they considering all the community activities and other facilities that Libraries provide in addition to books.
We need Libraries more than ever.
No council can pretend to care about health and wellbeing and then close Libraries, pretty well the only non-commercial public indoor space remaining and a lifeline to many.
BHCC have access to a number of funds including CIL tax from developers which is supposed to go back into the community, the Fairness Fund for People and the Shared Prosperity Fund, which could be used for Libraries.
They could also divert all EDI and diversity funds to Libraries since you cannot get more EDI than a Library!
The only thing this council is lacking in is imagination, not funds.
Why should residents be punished for the i360 disaster, over which we were given no vote and no say?
It is flabbergasting that, as a mother herself, Council Leader Bella Sankey cares so little about our children and young people. Can this be the same Council Leader constantly banging on about a ‘fair society’ for all?
Well closing Libraries is not fair and does not contribute to a better society.
PS: Below is another reason why closing public Libraries is so short-sighted. Each generates an estimated £1m of social benefits per year. If you count the 15 x Libraries in Brighton and Hove, that will be £15m social benefit returned to this council on a Library budget of £3.7 million annually. This means our Libraries are actually generating a profit in social benefit elsewhere which is almost 5 x times greater than the cost of running them!
A report by Libraries Connected, commissioned by East of England library services, found that a typical public library generates about £1 million of social benefits per year. This translates to a national total of £3.4 billion in value annually for all libraries in England, representing a return on investment of at least six times the cost, according to The Bookseller. This research, conducted through library visits, user interviews, and statistical analysis, highlights the significant social impact of libraries.
So if BHCC thinks they will save money by closing Libraries, they are wrong. It is actually going to cost the city a lot more in additional social services to close them than invest in them and they are not listening to expert advice on the matter.
I’m surprised that Mark Fry hasn’t commented yet ranting on about boomers! After all some older people use libraries when, according to Mark, they should just be lying down and dying so they don’t upset him by being alive….
MEANTIME OUR BELOVED COUNCIL, WHO CARE ABOUT US, SO MUCH FIND £11M TO EXTEND HOVE BEACH…..
Labour promised to keep libraries open in their manifesto now they close them. Never trust new Labour