Marple Civic Society News: Marple Civic Society and Friends of the Park meet with Library Management staff

Yesterday, members of Marple Civic Society and Friends of Marple Memorial Park met with two of the Library Management staff to discuss Open+ and the library consultation that is currently underway. Discussions were reassuring in part, although they were unable to tell us how many staffed hours would be lost from April next year.

The main points from the meeting were:

We stressed our opinion that it is crucial Open+ and reduced staffing hours should not impact or restrict local groups from using the library facilities for meetings and activities in exactly the same way as they do now (including access to the toilet). The library managers appear to be committed to achieving that and we look forward to details of how it will be made to work.

The restrictions to the upper floor of the library during Open+ hours are due to insurance issues, particularly the potential for an accident involving a fall from the balcony. We asked that they look into the viability and cost of installing some kind of (clear) barrier to make this safer, and give potential for the whole library to be open during Open+. We offered to discuss how the community may be able to help find funding for this if it did proved to be viable.

We stressed the importance of groups being able to continue to use the library for exhibitions and for people to be able to visit them while the library is open, even during Open+. We also reiterated that we considered it unsatisfactory that half the library space (upstairs) will not be available to users during Open+ hours. The degree to which this impacts on general community use will depend on the level of staffed hours lost but we feel it is important to look for solutions to this issue.

We expressed concerns about Open+ restrictions for unaccompanied under 16s. The severity of this of course depends on the extent of cuts to staffed hours and the timing of staffed sessions.

We expressed concern at the potential loss of the wonderful library staff and were assured that there would be no redundancies. While this is positive and does help to alleviate concerns, we are conscious that promises have been made in the past and not kept (like the undertaking given by the council to retain a full-time Park Keeper in Memorial Park that was not fulfilled).

We expressed concern that the leaflet promoting Open+ presents it in a purely positive way without telling people that from next April there will be cuts to staffed hours. This means that anyone reading it in isolation would not see a particular need to respond to the consultation. The library management emphasised that they are eager for local people to complete the consultation and asked for the help of Marple Civic Society, Friends of the Park and the Marple Website to encourage more people to respond.

We also explained a growing concern that consultations like this one seem to come to people's attention via the grapevine, rather than any formal notification process. This gives an impression that although the council is consulting they hope to do so without too many people noticing or understanding the significance. We believe that consultations that may be of concern to Marple residents should be formally announced at Marple Area Committee Meetings and will raise this as a public question with the Committee. The library managers also agreed to raise this internally themselves.

So what can you do? Pretty much as before:

Complete the consultation using the the comments section to highlight your own concerns and what you think is important. In particular (in our view) that local groups must be able continue as they are and that it is unsatisfactory for half the library to be out of bounds during Open+ hours.