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To: Somerset County Council and James Heappey MP

Save our libraries in Somerset - Save Highbridge Library

Stop closing and cutting library services in Somerset.
Save Highbridge Library and ALL our other local library services.

Keep and support our trained librarians. Fund and develop our professionally managed library services in our communities.

Communities need services. Councils should provide those services.

Why is this important?

We don't just use libraries to borrow books - we use them for reading, we use them for researching, we use them for the Internet services they provide and we need libraries to foster our learning.

Older people need libraries, adults and young adults need libraries - and families need libraries. ... and this means libraries with trained librarians, not just volunteers.

In spite of much deprivation and poor Internet access, Highbridge and many other similar communities are now growing - new houses being built and new young families moving into the area - this town needs a hub for its local services. What better place than the library?

The current library opening hours provide only restricted access to library services - the town is expanding - this service needs expanding.

The County Council has kept open the Highbridge Children's Centre and should be using the same arguments for investing in the Library. The Highbridge library is a valuable information hub - not only for the residents of Highbridge itself, but all those many, otherwise isolated, users in the outlying areas, some of which may only have mobile library access now, e.g. Mark, Walrow, Isleport, Bason Bridge & Watchfield.

These are users who can get to Highbridge Library using the existing (yet slender) public transport links. Burnham on Sea Library is just one further step away.

For a young parent with little children in Highbridge, it has been calculated that it costs £9.00 to get public transport to Burnham and back - but you can walk to the Highbridge Library!

"Google Can Bring You Back 100,000 Answers. A Librarian Can Bring You Back the Right One." Neil Gaiman

"Cutting libraries in a time of recession and austerity is like cutting hospitals during a plague."
(adapted from Eleanor Crumblehulme library assistant)

How it will be delivered

We shall email the signatures, deliver the petition in person and plan to stage a press conference nearer the end of the consultation period. (Consultation ends 22nd April 2018)

Highbridge, Somerset, TA9 3BP

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Updates

2018-02-27 22:31:14 +0000

100 signatures reached

2018-02-25 00:45:31 +0000

The Labour Party was collecting more signatures today outside Highbridge Library - there are still lots of people out there who don't know the service is about to be cut even further than it has already. We need to get this library open 5 days a week - not 9.5 hours a week! I know the Lib-Dems were there on 15th Feb (Consultation day) and we were working together in the campaign meeting last Thursday. Conservative District Councillor attended the campaign meeting on 15th Feb as well.

2018-02-24 18:37:40 +0000

Members took part in the Lobby of the County Council on Wednesday 21st February. Our Chair - Dave Chapple noted that Williton Library was being kept open because of derived local circumstances, and the Highbridge Children's Centre was being kept open for the same reasons and asked why the same criteria were not being applied to a crucial service like the library.

2018-02-20 17:53:48 +0000

50 signatures reached

2018-02-19 07:31:43 +0000

25 signatures reached

2018-02-18 21:17:14 +0000

10 signatures reached