News / Bristol Libraries
Bristol libraries could be run as ‘private, community-led initiatives’
Some Bristol libraries could be taken out of council hands and given to the community so they can be kept open without draining the public purse.
A £359,000 fund has this week been allocated to think up a future for the city’s libraries as the council looks to save them from closure while trimming millions from its budget.
Over the next seven months Bristol City Council is going to have “community conversations” with the city’s 27 libraries and their surrounding residents to find out what they want to see from the service.
is needed now More than ever
The former Eastville Library was taken into community ownership in 2015
Speaking at a council cabinet meeting on Tuesday, October 2, deputy mayor Asher Craig said £359,000 was needed for a Libraries Strategy which would look to “modernise the service”.
“The strategy will be informed by conversations with local communities which will kick off in November,” she said.
“All libraries will remain council-run for now, but in the future could be run by private initiatives led by the community.
“There will be council officer support for communities to progress any viable suggestions or turn ideas into pilots. There may even be some seed funding to kick-start projects.”
However, a decision will not be made until April and it is not clear yet which – if any – could leave council hands.
The libraries strategy will contain a vision for the future of library services in the city, plans on how to make each one financially sustainable and the best location for them to be placed.
In June, mayor Marvin Rees announced that impending cuts, which would have seen 17 out of 27 libraries closed for good, had been halted.
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The proposals would have helped save Bristol City Council £1.4m from its libraries budget amid some of the harshest budget constraints in a generation. Money from the mayor’s reserves is currently being used to make up the budget shortfall.
The decree was welcomed by campaigners, who had been fighting for a reversal of the proposed cuts, although concerns remained about how the longterm future of the service would be safeguarded.
Craig said the council is going to promote library use as much as possible.
“The team will work alongside communities to come up with solution for extending the current service and use of the buildings to build a more sustainable service,” she told councillors and campaigners at City Hall.
“There’s no denying that public libraries are beacons for knowledge for communities across the city because they are trusted places that welcome everyone.
“But what libraries do has never been confined to within the walls of the building, they are in our lives and in our communities.”
Campaigners who fought for the historic Redland Library when it was under threat remain concerned
The idea that libraries could be taken out of council hands was not met with approval by everyone.
Campaigner Lloyd Roberts , said: “There must be a concern at the underlying direction of travel of the council’s agenda for libraries, namely an expectation that communities and volunteers will take on more and more responsibility for running them.
“Not all of Bristol’s communities are equal. Not all of Bristol’s communities have a crowd of organised and willing volunteers who are able and motivated to run libraries.”
But Rees said there would not be a “one size fits all” approach to the strategy. Instead, the council will look at what each community wants from their service and how that can best be run.
Jack Pitts is a local democracy reporter for Bristol.
Read more: ‘Libraries have a much larger role to play than the current remit’
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