New funding fear over Hungerford library

Meeting told 'transitional cash' will be spent on need assessment

THE immediate survival of Hungerford Library has been plunged back into doubt.

Transitional funding was hoped to have secured its future for the next two years.

But now it is claimed that much of the cash could be eaten up by red tape instead.

West Berkshire Council was proposing to close eight of the district’s nine libraries – leaving just Newbury open – due to a £17.5m cut to its funding by the Government.

Then, in March, it announced it was using £475,000 of ‘transitional funding’ to give six of them, including Hungerford’s, a temporary stay of execution after the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) told the council it had a statutory duty to provide a “comprehensive and efficient library service”.

The DCMS further told the council it would have to complete a detailed needs assessment before approving its proposals.

It was widely understood that the transitional funding would help to keep Hungerford Library open for two years while alternative funding, staffing and training arrangements were made.

But at a full meeting of Hungerford Town Council a spokeswoman for Friends of Hungerford Library (FoHL), newly co-opted town councillor Helen Simpson, told colleagues: “We’ve now been told that most of the transitional funding will be spent on the needs assessment.

“This is after we were led to believe that the funding would see us through two years. Then it was one year.

“Hilary Cole (Con, Chieveley) has basically told us we had to take on the running of the library or lose it.

“But it’s hard to make a business plan when the goalposts keep moving.”

However, when asked by the Newbury Weekly News about the cost of the detailed needs assessment, Cllr Hilary Cole, West Berkshire Council’s executive member for culture, said she believed it would be “less than £30,000”.

Mrs Simpson had handed an update statement to the meeting which said: “It would appear the transitional funding will now not be enough to keep our libraries safe for two years as promised by our district council representatives at a recent town council meeting.

“FOHL received recent communication from Newbury MP Richard Benyon [in which] he informed us that the £1.4m has been secured for this year and for 2017, hopefully allowing our library service to continue.

“Unfortunately, FOHL has heard that the transitional funding will only be enough to last for six months and that transitional funding for libraries has not been secured for 2017.”

The statement added: “It is expected that funding will only be available for three months following the needs assessment.

“Any remaining money will be used to change the library service.

“We feel this is pre-empting the outcome of the needs assessment.

“The outcome of the needs assessment should give us a clearer idea of how our library service could change, continuing to fulfil the needs of our local community and provide West Berkshiure Council with a cost-saving solution.

“We need to work together to provide a sustainable model to secure our libraries long term.”

Cllr Cole said: Last year we fought hard to secure additional funding from the government to help us adjust to the significant reduction in our funding in future years.

“We chose to put £475,000 towards supporting our library service this year and I can reassure residents that this money will be used to help keep our branch libraries open pending the outcome of the needs assessment.

“It’s far-fetched to suggest that the bulk of the transitional funding will be used on the needs assessment.

“We believe it will cost less than £30,000 and the cost will be met from the annual budget assigned to the library service.”