Campaign group backs council tax precept increase 'subject to contract' for Bollington residents
Campaigners in Bollington have implied their support to a new proposal to prevent Bollington Library's hours being slashed, should the public get behind it too.
As reported by Macclesfield Nub News yesterday, Bollington Town Council has begun consulting its residents on proposals to save the town's Library from having its hours reduced by 66% from January next year under Cheshire East Council's Libraries Strategy.
A spokesperson for the town council said: "Bollington Town Council has begun consulting its residents on proposals to save the town's library from having its hours reduced by 66 per cent from January next year under Cheshire East Council's libraries strategy.
"The consultation on the library is combined with a proposal to keep the town's Pool Bank Car Park free of fees threatened by Cheshire East Council."
This would see an average monthly increase of £2.93 in its precept (the increase you would pay, would be dependent on your council tax band).
And responding to this news, is Friends of Bollington Library.
Friends of Bollington Library is a campaign group of concerned residents formed almost a year ago, when rumours of cuts to the Library first began to brew.
Now, they have revealed their public stance on the plans.
"The Friends of Bollington Library strongly support the proposal from the Town Council and urge residents to mark the voting slips"strongly agree" and return them to the various ballot boxes around the town," they said.
"The consultation on the Library is combined with a proposal to keep the town's Pool Bank car park free of fees threatened by Cheshire East Council.
"Residents paying the precept (that's the part of council tax which goes to Bollington Town Council) are being asked to say whether they agree to pay from April next year an average of an extra £2.93 per month to preserve the Library's opening hours and free parking on the town's main car park."
Bollington Town Council will be hosting a budget consultation meeting on the matter, next Tuesday, October 29. Members of Friends of Bollington Library will likely attend.
Vice-chair of the Friends group, Sandra Edwards said "We have reason to believe that if the town's Library opening is reduced to a puny 11 hours per week as planned by Cheshire East, the service would then be at risk from total closure; the authority has made it clear that yet more cuts to its libraries are being planned, almost certainly with in the next few months."
"More than half the population of Bollington are registered as Library members and a full range of services is available over five days of the week, making the Library a central facility for our town's community.
"If the partnership Cheshire East and the Town Council to share the cost of keeping the library open for its current hours gains the support of the residents of Bollington, this would be subject to a contract which would go some way to protecting the library from further cuts.
"The Friends group supports the proposal to keep Pool Bank car park free; we know the value of a free car park for providing access to services as we have at the Library and worry about the impact of charging at Pool Bank on local shops and also on residents, many of whom have no space for parking in the traditional terraced housing in Bollington and who see the problems certain to be caused by displaced parking on our very narrow streets."
Details of the consultation can be seen on the Bollington Town Council website and it is being delivered in print form to all homes in Bollington. Spare paper copies can be obtained from the Town Hall.
For your views to count, the opinion survey needs to be returned by November 15 to locations across Bollington, including the Library itself, Bollington Tesco, Bollington Co-op, Bollington Health and Leisure, Bollington Town Hall, Chadwick's Newsagents (directly opposite the Pool Bank Car Park) and Grimshaw Lane Corner Store.
This year has been the 50th anniversary of Bollington Town Council, but it has also been a year of cuts for the town as a whole. Cheshire East closed the tip earlier this year, but an offer was on the cards for the Town Council to fund the tip until next year, but it was not approved.
This time around, could Bollington Town Council's funding to borough council cuts go ahead?
In related news, last week, Cheshire East Council released a video on the results of their recent library consultation.
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