Library cutbacks ease after review

An extensive three-month consultation has led to its proposals for the future of the library service being revised.

The council says it needs to save £69m in total over the next few years and £2m was set to be found from the library budget.

However, further funding has now been found, so the library savings have been reduced to £1.7m. The council says this means there will be more time for it to work with communities to find solutions.

North Yorkshire has 42 branch libraries, 10 mobiles and one “super-mobile” library equipped with internet technology.

The county council’s executive later this month will decide on a revised set of proposals which it says will maintain the core service across the county, including market towns, while retaining its supermobile service to remote, sparsely populated areas.

Libraries in key centres of population will offer the full range of services but with fewer library staff and opening hours reduced from their current level with no Sunday opening.

But the cost of the current mobile service is acknowledged as no longer sustainable and other solutions must be found.

County councillor Chris Metcalfe, North Yorkshire’s Executive Member for the Library and Information Service said: “We have listened hard during this extensive consultation and feel heartened that our outstanding libraries are held in such high regard as centres of excellence for reading, learning and community engagement.

“For this reason we believe the solution we have now put together will help to sustain a vital service into the future, shared across the county while making the necessary savings.”

A further report in October will detail how further savings of £1m will be achieved between 2012/13 and 2013/14.