At the Constituency meeting, 20th Feb 2012, a discussion was held on the future of Library Services across the Erdington Constituency, following the 6 Labour Councillors voting to cut services at the libraries at the last meeting, despite vocal protests from residents and Conservative Councillors. The discussion was started by a officer of Birmingham City Council outlining what the minimum service levels could be. A number of residents were present to then put forward the case for preserving the services at the Library. Cllr’s Bob Beauchamp, Matt Bennett, Robert Alden and Gareth Moore then put forward the case for preserving the services. Cllr Robert Alden started by outlining how important the Library in Erdington is as the heart of the local community, High Street and society. Following on from this Robert made the following points:-
· We must protect the opening hours at the library
· We only have two libraries in the constituency we cannot allow one of them to close.
· Lots of services are co-located in the library
· The library helps with a number of extracurricular activities such as working with local schools, the elderly, helping with computers etc
· Currently a number of other groups e.g. Erdington Historical Society and they must be allowed to continue to meet at the Library.
· In the year used for the work, Erdington was the busiest library in the City
· Over 500 people had signed the Erdington Conservative petition to save the library and this has been handed to the Council.
· Local Conservatives have met with the leader of the Council, Deputy Leader of the Council, the Cabinet Members responsible, the Constituency Manager and the Service Review Officers to discuss the proposals and try to stop them.
Following this the Officer in charge of the Service Review, confirmed that the Constituency Committee could save the services at the Library if they voted to. He also conceded that following points made by the Cllrs Alden, Beauchamp and Moore at a previous meeting they are now providing a £220K supply pool staff budget to help ensure all libraries are manned.
At the close of discussions Cllr Robert Alden proposed the following motion seconded by Cllr Matt Bennett
“Following the report to the Constituency this committee still feels that it is not acceptable to reduce services at the Erdington and Castle Vale Libraries and so will use the delegated power of a Constituency Committee to protect services at both libraries”
The Labour Chairman and Councillors on the committee then tried to stall a vote from being taken on the motion for almost 20 minutes before finally they amended the motion to include if they can at the end of it.
Cllr Bob Beauchamp said “it has not gone unnoticed that the Labour Councillors have amended the motion to give themselves a way not to save the library services. We will be keeping the pressure up to ensure they do not go back on what was agreed”.
Cllr Matt Bennett said “Today we moved a step closer towards being able to save the libraries; it is just a shame that the Labour Councillors had to try everything they could to stop the motion, to save the services, being voted on including asking for it to be withdrawn”
Cllr Robert Alden added “at the last meeting on 21st of November 2011 Labour voted to cut services at the Libraries, they have now at least partially reversed that by agreeing to relook at it. The fight is not over yet but the news that opening hours will be preserved, there will be no closures and there will be a budget for supply staff when needed to cover holiday etc is at least some good news. The fight to save the Library services goes on but residents can rest assured we will not rest”.