Oliver's Battery & Badger Farm Councillors

Earlier this month I mentioned the threat to local library services. Yesterday's Hampshire Chronicle confirmed these fears. According to the Chronicle's front page story, the Conservative-run county council is looking at cutting around one-third of 80 professional librarian posts in branches and the Library Service HQ in North Walls, Winchester. As if that was not enough, the book fund could also lose £250,000 from its £2m budget.

LibDem County Cllr Peter Chegwyn, spokesman for Recreation & Heritage, said "This means fewer books and fewer qualified people to advise the public. Many librarians have given years of service to Hampshire and now, at a stroke, we will lose that expertise and knowledge. Hampshire already spends the least per head of population of any local authority in England on new library books and saw the biggest decline in book borrowing (9%) of any county last year".

I find this all very disturbing. Huge amounts of money are being spent around the county converting libraries into "Discovery Centres" and it's becoming clearer and clearer that this development is at the expense of providing the core library service. In the same week that the county council gave itself planning permission to spend £40m refurbishing its headquarters it seems content to throw to the wolves an important public service that promotes reading and literacy. I am not impressed.