Mayor should take leadership on the issue of South Yorkshire libraries - Yorkshire Post Letters

Records show that as early as 1999 the opposition groups on Sheffield Council were calling for reregulation of buses in the area, but it is only 25 years later we have finally got some form of progress on the issue.

There are not only buses but books we have no answers to from a lame duck mayor. The county's libraries have been ravaged and destroyed by years of austerity, Doncaster having seen its number of staffed libraries drop from 26 to four, Sheffield from 28 to 12.

A whole generation of children are growing up in some of the poorest areas of both cities without access to a staffed council-run library service. These include areas with some of the highest levels of income, educational and other kinds of deprivation.

The mayor's own team published many pieces of research relating the desperate need to upskill the workforce and increase literacy in the poorest areas yet no thought or mention is made of making the case for a coordinated plan to improve library provision.

The mayor needs to take leadership on this issue and bring in a new deal for South Yorkshire's libraries, starting with investing in staffed library provision in the poorest areas.