The Council has published a Phase 2 Consultation Pack outlining its plans for each library in the city, announced in-person consultation meetings for each library, and issued a new online survey. Stirchley’s consultation meeting is next Wednesday 4th September 10.30am-12pm.
Option 1 and Option 2 from the original consultation document have been dropped, Option 3 and 4 remain with more detail about what this will mean for individual libraries.
Under Option 3 Stirchley Library will close. This is unthinkable and must be strongly opposed.
Under Option 4 Stirchley Library will open just 14 hours a week, along with 18 other libraries across the city. This is the Council’s preferred option, but two days a week is not an adequate library service for any community and this cut must be strongly opposed.
As we feared, it seems the temporary closure on Thursdays was never intended to be temporary. The impact of this cut to Stirchley Library has been felt over the summer since the ‘temporary’ closure came into force, impacting the summer reading challenge, jigsaw club, and dozens of regular library users each week and will have ongoing implications as children go back to school, with just one afternoon a week now available for school visits.
Stirchley Library is especially vulnerable
In the Phase 2 Consultation Pack the Council reveals that Stirchley Library has been ranked bottom of all 35 libraries for priority ‘inclusion in the plan’. This makes Stirchley Library very vulnerable to complete closure, either as part of a half-way-house compromise between Options 3 & 4, or for future cuts to the service.
This ranking is truly shocking considering the high usage rates for Stirchley Library and the significant levels of need in the catchment area. The Council claims to have given equal weighting to each of these factors when ranking libraries, and then taken ‘other considerations’ into account. While Stirchley library’s catchment area does not have as much deprivation as some parts of our city, it is rated as IMD Decile 3, which means it is amongst the 30% most deprived areas in the country. Stirchley’s usage figures are impressive, with rising footfall, pre-pandemic levels of library loans, and the highest loan rate per member in the city.
We can only conclude that ‘other considerations’ have contributed significantly to Stirchley’s bottom ranking, but we do not know what these are. Have we been penalised for having worked really hard to support our library with a Friends group and volunteer network? Or perhaps we have been downgraded because there is a community centre next door to the library? We can only speculate at this stage, but we need to ask and get answers.
What can you do?
Attend the consultation meeting on Wednesday 4th September 10.30am-12pm -Come along on 4th September if you can and encourage others to attend. If you have pre-school children bring them along so they can contribute. If you cannot attend, see ‘write a card or letter’ below.
Share personal stories with the consultation team – Personal stories of how you use the library and why it is important to you are powerful – more powerful than opinions on why we need libraries in general.
Write a card or a letter for the consultation team and leave it at Stirchley Library – If the library is closed, post it through the letterbox. Use it to tell a personal story. We will display all the cards and letters received on the table for the consultation team to read when they arrive. Ask everyone in your family to write their own greetings card or letter.
Ask questions – Where is the equalities impact assessment of the proposed cuts to Stirchley Library? How will the proposed cuts impact on children’s literacy? On families? On residents without computer or internet access at home? On disabled residents? On older people facing social isolation? On clubs and groups? On partnerships and volunteers? Why has Stirchley been ranked bottom when it has high usage rates and moderate deprivation? Has Stirchley been unfairly penalised for supporting the council through Friends of Stirchley Library?
Respond to the survey – Birmingham Loves Libraries are working to write a short guide to help people understand the proposals and respond well to the new survey. We hope to have something ready to send out over the weekend or early next week. The deadline for filling in the survey is Friday 27th September.
Email John Cotton and Cllr Suleman – We recommend sending Cllrs Cotton and Suleman an email telling them that these closures are unacceptable, will impact on those most in need in our community, including on schools, and according to the latest report by the Audit Reform Lab, are unjustified and unnecessary. Furthermore, Friends of Stirchley Library (FOSL) works hard to mitigate the cuts of 2016. FOSL volunteers open the library with a self-service offer on Wednesdays and help to keep the library open over lunchtimes on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Shutting Stirchley Library a further day feels like a kick in the teeth for committed FOSL volunteers, effectively negating all their efforts.
Emails: [email protected]; [email protected]
We recommend cc’ing your local councillor [email protected]
Please get in touch if you have other ideas or would like to get more active in the campaign.