Following the Tory Administration's decision to lease of the Link Centre and the other leisure facilities in the town, West Swindon Library is under threat.
Following the Tory Administration's decision to lease of the Link Centre and the other leisure facilities in the town, West Swindon Library is under threat.
GLL, the new operators, have announced that they want to move the West Swindon Library from its current position at the heart of Link Centre to an as yet undisclosed location upstairs, hidden away from view, so that they can use the prime location downstairs for a Gym.
We want to work with local residents and users of the library to campaign for the Library to keep its position at the entrance of the Link Centre, where it is readily available to the people of West Swindon. The current library was purposely designed to be a library and operates very successfully, in terms of book loans, computer use, engaging young readers at the hugely popular Rhyme time and Story time sessions as well as being as vital community hub supporting the Council's Locality team and hosting the West Swindon Forum.
We are very concerned that moving the library upstairs would make it harder for people to access the library, especially for some of the users who have disabilities and the parents of young children. We are unsure of what space would be allocated for the library upstairs, what this would mean in terms of books, computers, community space.
We believe that it is totally unacceptable for the Library to be reduced in size.
Sign the petition and take our library use survey
Would the new space be appropriate for the sessions for young children, for the local people who are blind that regularly meet up, for elderly and disabled users, for hosting community meetings?
Is this just another in the long-line of bungled deals with the private sector that the Conservative administration seem to specialise in at the moment. Following the wi-fi scandal, the Oasis development delays with local businesses being left out of pocket, and the £15m Car Park that supposedly was to unlock millions of private finance that has never been seen, are we seeing another example of weak negotiation and the tendency of the Tory Cabinet to roll over and have their tummies tickled whilst working with business, rather than properly holding them to account on how they work with public assets and demanding value-for-money and the right outcomes for the people of Swindon.
We are very conscious of recent research carried out by the Higher Education Funding Council for England which shows that Swindon has an extremely low rate of people accessing Higher Education and getting literacy qualifications. With this in mind, we feel that anything which could have a negative impact on library usage should be avoided.
We want to ensure that there is a first-class library for the people of West Swindon that delivers all of the literacy, leisure, life-long learning, and community services that continues to be located at the prime ground-floor site.
Please support the campaign by joining our Facebook group – Save West Swindon Library and tweeting your support using the #SaveWestSwindonLibrary hashtag