Five Dudley libraries will close for good after their fate was sealed by council chiefs. Campaigners say that it will leave a “hole in the community”.
They reacted with anger at the decision to shut Dudley Wood, Quarry Bank, Amblecote, Wall Heath and Woodside libraries at last night’s full council meeting.
The authority’s ruling Tory group approved the plan, saying it would improve services for borrowers in the long run.
But Kingswinford and Wall Heath Liberal Democrat councillor Dave Tyler said: “Years and years of hard work have been put in by committed librarians and we are dismissing their services without any thought.”Quarry Bank and Dudley Bank Labour councillor Bryan Cotterill said: “We should be building up libraries, not closing them.”
Officers say the £2.6million savings on maintenance of the sites will be ploughed into the modernisation of the rest of the borough’s library service, including remodelling Wordsley Green Library.
Link libraries, which stock about 1,500 books and open for 10 hours a week, will also be set up in Dudley Wood, Quarry Bank and Woodside.
Speaking after the meeting, Rosalynd Cutler, of Coxcroft Avenue, who has recently retired from Dudley Wood Library where she has worked for the past 25 years, said: “It is very, very sad.
“It is going to leave a hole in the community.”
9 Comments
At a time when reading standards are so low they are going to shut libraries What a waste of time Dudley council is.Dont know what we pay council tax for its certainly not for services we get.Proberly for the christmas dinners for the council.
The Socialists did away with Dudley Grammar School (founded in 1546) because of jealousy; now they are closing the libaries. You can’t have knowledge and intelligence competing with socialism. They don’t mix.
Pat - It is precisely to save council taxpayers’ money that these under-used libraries are having to close. The Wall Heath library, for instance, is barely a mile from the Kingswinford library, which will remain open. The savings from the closure programme can then be ploughed back into improving the book stock - surely a more important part of any library service than mere bricks-and-mortar.
Good-evening all!
I,ve said it before,and will repeat;reading=knowledge,the more
you read,the more fluent one becomes in one,s own lingo,and
often in others too!Sad indeed!
When I went to live in Holland,
donkeys years ago,books were the
best way next to speaking,to learn
Dutch(not double Dutch,mind you)
FJ Bartling,Hilversum,Holland.
once a Dudley lad
Nice how closing down libraries is always judged as good for the community. We all know its about saving money.
Its a sign of the times. What else will the council dispose of in order to save more money?
Pay As You Throw?
Pay As You Drive?
Pay As You Grow?
Pay As You Strive!
Frank has got his facts wrong. It’s the Tories closing the libraries, not socialists. Perhaps he was taught to read by the Tories, too.
PETE DO EXPECT PEOPLE TO CATCH BUSES PAY BUS FARES WITH PUSH CHAIRS AND CHILDREN IN TOE I DONT THINK SO.If ITS TO SAVE MONEY WHY ARE THEY GOING TO BUILD A NEW LIBRARY IN BRIERLEY HILL WHEN THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE OLD ONE WHICH IS RIGHT BY A BUS STOP FOR CONVENIENCE.SEEMS TO ME DUDLEY COUNCIL LIKE WASTE MONEY OUR MONEY MIGHT I ADD
They might just be replacing Brierley Hill library because it is part of a huge multi-million pound regeneration scheme that will include new roads, new houses and a Metro line, and that will see the transformation of Brierley Hill/Merry Hill & The Waterfront into the new commercial heart of the Black Country.
Or would people like Pat Clarke rather all this money (most of it outside investment) go somewhere elsewhere instead while their Borough remain stuck with crumbling infrastructure and a reputation for looking backwards into the past?
Same old tories hurting the poor in our society what new!