Victory for Gloucestershire library campaigners
CAMPAIGNERS are celebrating after winning their fight to stop the closure of 10 libraries in the county.
A High Court judge said today that Gloucestershire County Council's plan to cut funding for the buildings cannot to ahead.
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Library campaign
The decision means Shire Hall must reconsider its decision to hand facilities to volunteers.
It means that the Conservative administration must continue to pay for libraries including Hester's Way and Churchdown.
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Public Interest Lawyers, which fought the case against decisions by councils in Gloucestershire and Somerset, said that for more than a year campaigners had been ``pointing to the disproportionate effect that the cuts would have on disadvantaged groups such as the elderly, single mothers and the disabled''.
The judge, they added, had "ruled comprehensively in their favour".
In a statement Mr Carey said: "Today’s High Court ruling sends a clear message not only to Gloucestershire and Somerset, but to every council in the country that catering for the needs of the vulnerable must be at the heart of any decision to cut important services such as libraries.
"The ’big society’ cannot be relied upon to justify disenfranchising vulnerable individuals from the services on which they rely.
"I am very pleased for the thousands of residents who have supported this campaign."
Judge McKenna ruled: "In my judgment, on the preponderance of the evidence, no such due regard was had in substance.
"In order to discharge their respective duties Gloucestershire County Council (GCC) and Somerset County Council (SCC) should have undertaken a sufficiently thorough information gathering exercise and then properly analysed that information.
"In this case I conclude that both GCC and SCC failed to comply with that obligation."
Cllr Mark Hawthorne, Leader of Gloucestershire County Council, said: “The most important thing here is that the judge said that there is nothing wrong with our plans to transfer some libraries over to communities.
“We are very disappointed for the community groups who are lined up to take over their services, but our promise to them is that we will continue to work with them on delivering successful community run services.
“In line with the judge’s ruling, we will be taking this decision again with an open mind but we are confident that our policy on community run libraries is sound.”
Pete Bungard, Chief Executive of the Council, said: “We have a priority to protect services for vulnerable people and to do that we have to reduce our spending and that means libraries taking some of the burden.
“In this case, the judge has found in our favour on the 47 year old legislation – it is clear we can reduce our budget and have fewer libraries. He was also clear that our consultation was sound and open minded.
“However, the judge found we needed to do more with regards to our responsibilities under the Equalities Act and this is a huge disappointment as we take our duties here extremely seriously.
“With hindsight, we approached this as a transfer to the community rather than a statutory closure where a more thorough approach would have been taken.”
After the decision Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries released the following statement:
We are delighted with the outcome of the judicial review. This outcome follows the proper scrutiny of Gloucestershire County Council's library plans in court; scrutiny which was never allowed under the councils own processes. The judge’s decision to rule in the claimant’s favour on equality grounds is a real vindication of our campaign, which has long argued that the removal of public library services from the most disadvantaged, deprived and vulnerable members of our community is grossly unfair. We are also pleased to learn that the council have been denied permission to appeal the decision.
However, as Gloucestershire tax payers we regret the inevitable expense that will now be incurred by the county, and which could have been avoided if only the council had listened to and engaged with service users – they have seriously let their taxpayers and electorate down. Over the last year library users and retired professional librarians have repeatedly warned the council that they were in breach of the law, but party politics was always placed before these concerns, which were again and again dismissed.
Gloucestershire residents should never have had to go through this stressful, upsetting and expensive process and serious questions now also need to be answered by the secretary of state Ed Vaizey. It is Mr Vaizey’s duty to intervene when authorities are not meeting their obligations to provide a library service available to all who wish to use it. Why were Gloucestershire County Council allowed to continue down this destructive path? In opposition Mr Vaizey was a vocal critic of library closures yet our many pleas for help have been ignored whilst library users were left to fight this alone - it is clear that he left his convictions at the door on entering office.
We would like to thank supporters of the campaign locally and nationally, and urge all Gloucestershire library users to keep a close eye on the county council’s activities in the coming months to ensure they do their job properly this time round. We also need to be vigilant to cuts which may be planned for the future. Libraries are more important than ever in times of financial crises, when education costs are rising astronomically and many people are losing their jobs. We hope that come the next county council elections, voters will remember the arrogance displayed by the Gloucestershire County Council administration on this issue.
Comments
by gomums
Thursday, November 17 2011, 10:52AM
“What a complete waste of public money. How much has this cost us???? It is time Hawthorne and his over paid cronies were hounded out of office. If you go on GCC website and tap in £500 spend under legal services we should be able to tot up how much we paid.”
by Alphonso2
Thursday, November 17 2011, 5:18AM
“Wally37. But of course we should cease educating ourselves at the age of 24! :-)”
by MimiGallagher
Thursday, November 17 2011, 12:24AM
“Libraries are vital and yes I do regularly use them. The thing about this which strikes me is that the Tories in Shire Hall are so far up their own derriers that they refuse to listen to well reasoned opposition to their hare brained ideas. And we should not have to go through a judicial process to get proper scrutiny of these decisions but we do. Tory backbenchers have the backbone of spongebob square pants and won't stand up to Hawthorne and his Cabinet cronies even when there is a real need for them to be challenged.”
by L_escalier
Thursday, November 17 2011, 12:05AM
“Bonkim2003:
'The deathknell of Libraries - catering to the recreational market, reduced Reference, technical, literature, history and other sections, started lending records, tapes and CDs to keep folk entertrained. Those who looked to the Libraries for serious material just went away.'
I can't help seeing a parallel with the BBC, who decided, in the last decade or so, that they needed to complete with commercial television, both in terms of output, and what they paid presenters, producers, etc, and now, being told that Cuts Must Be Made, can't terminate the contracts of overpaid stars, so have to hack away at the programming infrastructure instead.
Anyhoo, does this mean we get our mobile library back in Barton again?”
by Bonkim2003
Wednesday, November 16 2011, 11:06PM
“SG1970 - agree with you somewhat with lifestyle changes influencing how we use communal facilities. Libraries were centres of knowledge - not just buildings for lending fiction to the retired folk.
For youngsters this was extra-curricular exploration to get a taste of the diversity of human endeavour and often started taking an interest in the arts or sciences. People did not just go to libraries to borrow particular books or for structured education which they got from the schools and colleges but to taste the variety on offer and sample before they dived in particular directions. Experienced Librarians were part of the theme.
The deathknell of Libraries - catering to the recreational market, reduced Reference, technical, literature, history and other sections, started lending records, tapes and CDs to keep folk entertrained. Those who looked to the Libraries for serious material just went away.
You can not compare the Library experience with Kindle or googling or looking at large maps with the fleeting images og Google-Earth. But yes sad as it may seem people today have too many things to distract their attention without getting into anything in-depth.
Contrary to some of the comments Victorian Worthies built Libraries to encourage the less priviliged to improve themselves - some of these became centres of education, publishing and exploration. Education of the masses was a major theme in socialist political thought.
Not sure if the age of the Kindle will generate the same enthusiasm for enquiry and questioning that Libraries inspired or simply make future society lazy and compliant to the messages beamed to their media consoles.”
by SG1970
Wednesday, November 16 2011, 9:41PM
“The ruling just delays the inevitable demise of local library's. Some large Town and City ones will survive, but the rest will close in the near future.
Technology is cheap and getting cheaper. Most of the middle age generation are able to use a PC and buy, sell, find things. Amazon can deliver second hand books to your door for pennies, and you can sell it after if you want.
Schools will be dishing out laptops/tablets/note books, as some do already.
Then you get to the Kindle like tablets, cheap, stores 100,000's of books, a lot you can find free, and download in free wifi/internet zones.
Bit of a waste of time and money all-round from all parties. Local libraries will get a boost from this ruling, but will rapidly dwindle into completely economic non-viable rapidly.”
by gdnmc1
Wednesday, November 16 2011, 9:14PM
“Not only did the judgement state that the County Council's actions were unlawful, but that they were a substantial breach of the law and also "bad government". Instead of arrogant distortions of the truth, we should be getting humble apologies from these politicians like Cllr Hawthorn who are now proven in a court of law to be both incompetent and dishonest.”
by Library_User
Wednesday, November 16 2011, 9:08PM
“"Victory for Gloucestershire library campaigners" - TiG deliberately chooses to miss the point. It is not a victory for the campaigners. It is a victory for the people of Gloucestershire.”
by Wally37
Wednesday, November 16 2011, 8:36PM
“gdnmc1
The government via the taxpayer paid for you to have a free education. However you chose to leave school at 15 with no education.
You then chose to ignore the free education provided by the government via the taxpayer at a further education establishment which still today is absolutely free for you up to the age of 24.
You chose not to read the free books provided for you at school and at your local college.
So we the taxpayer wasted our money providing you with an education and you arrogantly chose to be a further burden on us the taxpayer by educating yourself at the local library.
So we in effect have had to pay three times for your education.
Such waste can no longer be sustained.
Education is provided free for all up to the age of 24. For the unemployed its free at any age. So there is no need for a Library to provide an "education"
Today the Echo has run a story that the library is being used less with less books being loaned.
The story is less books are being loaned, not that there are less books to be loaned.
If there is a need for libraries why are the charity book shops, Amazon, WH smiths et al able to make a profit if there are so many people desperate to get their hands on free books, but not actually using the Library?
If the library is now there to provide free internet for the 40% of the population who are too poor to have a home PC , why aren't there long queues outside the library to use this service?
For all the posturing the library service needs to be trimmed to provide a reverence service for academic study only.
Over the next few years whenever you read a story on TiG about cuts to care for the elderly or the vulnerable remember that you can't eat books only burn them to provide heat when you can't pay your gas bill.”
by Lecorche
Wednesday, November 16 2011, 7:39PM
“Mark Hawthorne (and possibly TiG) fails to acknowledge the judge's statement :
The decisions were "not merely unlawful decisions, but in substance 'bad government'.
Time to fall on your sword,Mr Hawthorne ?”