York’s Conservative councilors are urging residents to respond to City of York Council’s consultation on library use, which is open now and will run until 7th February. York’s libraries are run by Explore under a 15 year contract which will run until 2034. There are currently 15 libraries and the extensive archives, mobile libraries and reading cafes. Despite the contract and Service Level Agreement being in place, at the last budget Labour targeted a cut of £500,000; York’s Conservatives opposed this cut but there clearly remains a concern and many will be worried that this consultation is part of a wider plan by Labour to cut services.
Stats from Explore’s website show how vital our libraries are in that last year the welcomed nearly 725,000 visitors, engaged nearly 80,000 people in Archives, held 2,571 events and registered over 10,000 new library members as well as averaging the lending out of over 1800 books a day. Volunteers gave nearly 19,000 hours of their time equivalent to around £250,000 of staff time.
Cllr Mike Nicholls who is Chair of the Council’s Children, Culture & Communities Scrutiny Committee said
The survey is just ten questions long and can be done online or via a paper copy within one of the libraries. Whether you are borrowing a book in Bishopthorpe or popping to one of the larger libraries to have a coffee and cake whilst doing some research or maybe going to the Archives, our libraries have so many uses for us all. With Labour trying to cut the library budget by hundreds of thousands it is vital we remind them what they mean to us.
The consultation is available on the below link: