Up to three libraries face their final chapter as as the council seeks to save a six-figure sum.
The uncertain future for community libraries in Brighton and Hove should become clearer next month when the council’s cabinet is due to decide their fate.
A “sustainability plan” is due to be published and if Brighton and Hove City Council’s cabinet agrees – it will go out for consultation.
The plan is being prepared for publication after the council said that it was looking to cut £250,000 from its annual £3.7 million libraries budget over two years.
Proposals that went before the council’s People Overview and Scrutiny Committee in March also said that up to three community libraries could close. But at least 10 libraries would stay open, the council said, maintaining a “geographic spread”.
Seven community libraries share buildings – or have been co-located – with other services such as the Whitehawk Hub, Saltdean Lido, Westdene School and Hollingbury Old Boat Community Centre.
Since March, the council has carried out a “needs and use” analysis to decide whether it needs to close three libraries to save money.
Campaigners in Rottingdean started two petitions. One urged people in the village to support and save their library. The petition had almost 2,800 signatures.
A second petition aimed to save all of the community libraries in Brighton and Hove. It had 646 signatures.
Changes have already taken place to improve the financial outlook for libraries including a move last month to bring the council’s customer services teams into the Jubilee Library, in Brighton, and the Carnegie Library, in Hove.
But this month, the customer services opening hours were reduced because of staff shortages, with the Unison trade union saying that there was a lack of training for people in new roles.
Other proposed changes to the library service include reducing the opening hours at the flagship Jubilee Library and at Hove Library.
The library service sustainability plan is due to go before the council’s cabinet on Thursday 17 July.
What will happen with the end of the pfi set-up?
Relatives of mine campaign to save local mobile libraries – in Essex – and we’ve had ‘difficult’ family discussions about this. My home when I grew up, with my mum a schoolteacher, was always full of books, and I treasure that memory, and the education those books gave me. As a kid, I simply loved reading.
In this case, my in-laws are trying to save a local service, which not only provides a free book exchange each week, but which for older people in rural settings gives them an opportunity to make some social contact, however small.
And the truth is that libraries are not just about the books.
At the same time, it does seem a waste of public money that books are available from libraries in rich or middle class areas like Brighton – when most people read a novel via Amazon/kindle or are happy to buy the book themselves from Waterstones, and that is their new shopping or online social experience.
My own books have recently been bought second hand via World of Books which I hear is based in Worthing.
But the digital and IT world means that we also get our day-today education and entertainment elsewhere, and paper books are now competing with some many other art forms.
In that setting, of historical change, the council now have to make difficult decisions, based on budgets, and for me, despite being a great book reader, I am now in two minds about this.
If closing a library would mean we get a new swimming pool, then I’d say yes.
On the other hand, if we need to close a library to duplicate the existing cycle lane in Hove, as they plan to do, then I’d say no. Perhaps the historical reference here would be ‘Hobson’s Choice’.
And this is not really about the books, is it? It’s about a decision and funding process which is totally broken.
It’s also about our nostalgia for a world which doesn’t really exist any more.
Libraries probably can’t survive as they are; but rebuilt as hybrid community spaces, held by the VCSE sector, and embedded in a new civic purpose, they could thrive again, not as nostalgic relics, but as flexible platforms for connection, support, and resilience. That’s what I think, anyway.
Rich or middle class areas like Brighton!!! There are many poor people in Brighton (where does this weird idea that everyone in Brighton is rich come from?) to whom the public libraries are a life-line to literature/factual information (not everything is available on-line) not to mention a place to meet up socially that doesn’t cost the earth.
Large numbers of people use the library services in this city, including some of the most vulnerable members of our community – and including a lot of relatively affluent people too – and it’s been long time since libraries were a loan service only, so however many buzz words are added, it’s not a novel suggestion or Innovation.
Are we seriously suggesting that we sincerely think it’s too expensive for cities in G7 nations to afford both a leisure centre and a library service? Why do we accept this framing, it’s pathetic.
Plenty of people also still use libraries to borrow books and frankly for regular readers that’s a more rational choice than purchasing each book outright, only to read most books once. It is a good thing that the service can be valued by different social groups and different users for different reasons!
We rent our public spaces for 2-3 times less than any other city. The promotors (a tight circle of acquaintances who do not have to tender for the spaces) make literally millions from events that we take less than 5% from. If we rented our PUBLIC spaces for a proper commercial rate we would have another money to not only pay for our libraries but we could actually increase their funding. Brighton is an ATM for private companies. We should also be a home for our residents. Education matters more than a few people cashing out at our expense.
The bigger question is how Brighton & Hove uses its assets to fund services; libraries included. That deserves honest debate, not just angry, recycled soundbites based in bizarre conspiracy, aggression, and unsubstantiated claims, which unfortunately does appear to be a trademark for your family unit. Feels like you’re both more interested in being outraged than actually making positive change. Unfortunately, we can’t be silenced for disagreeing with you here.
Brighton is unique in having an easily accessible, tiered rate structure for seafront/promenade hires, listing day rates by event type. Most other places don’t publish comparable data, so I question the accuracy of your claim.
This is an abhorrent council theft of valuable community assets – a lifeline to many – whether residents read books, attend events, or just go to read newspapers and warm up, having had their winter fuel allowance stolen, and must be repelled without delay. Sack the pointless invisible BHCC CEO and Sankey’s luxury second deputy leader and that immediately releases in excess of £250k to save the Libraries! Also why is this council paying £2.2m a year loan repayments back to the public works loan board to pay off the i360 debt until 2041 if the debt was “written off”? I note former co-architect, Julie Barfield, is still running two connected companies to this failed white elephant attraction, which is also bizarre.
The i360 debt was only written off in terms of the council loan to the now defunct i360 company
The council borrowed the money from the Public Works Loan Board which is not writing it off. And nor should it.
Stolen is an odd and disingenuous turn of phrase. Probably good to remember that BHCC used additional schemes to functionally do the same as the WFA through the Household Support Fund.