Your View: Stannington Library

Martin Vaughan

Sheffield

An open letter to the LimDeb councillors for Stannington ward, the candidates from other parties, prospective or confirmed, and the volunteers from the local Labour party running Stannington library.

It is now over four years since Stannington library lost its three dedicated library staff. It is also over four years since the library lost its place as a staffed library as part of the council's statutory, official library service. Funding is now only guaranteed, as it stands, until 2020 for the volunteer-run library. For the good of the community, it is vital that our library is given secure funding and professional library staff. The professionally staffed library we had until 2014 was providing a well-used service of huge educational and social value to the area, which not only provided books but a social outreach for many elderly and otherwise lonely and isolated people in the ward. Add to this that the nearest alternative library at Hillsborough requires a 20-minute bus ride and lengthy walk through Hillsborough and through the park, surely a difficult task for anyone with limited mobility.

I wanted to appeal to the ward councillors and the library volunteers to join library users in lobbying for a professionally staffed library for the ward, so that this vital community resource can be saved for future generations and that the work done by the volunteers in keeping the library open is not in vain.