Future of Public Libraries
Debate between Sarah Dyke and Anna Sabine(2 weeks, 5 days ago)
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Anna Sabine (Frome and East Somerset) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I thank the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Jonathan Davies) for securing this debate.
I want to talk about the future of public libraries in my fairly rural constituency. In particular, I wish to highlight the role of Radstock library, one of 11 community-run libraries in Bath and North East Somerset. Although the council supports the core service, providing book deliveries and the library system, it is the local community that keeps its doors open. In Radstock’s case, the council provides the staff, premises and IT, but for libraries without council support it is a real struggle.
The value of community-run libraries is immense. In Radstock the library is much more than a place to borrow books. People come to use the public computers and printers, which are vital in a digital age. They come to read, to study, to hot-desk and to connect. The library runs events such as Lego club and knit and natter, and hosts Read Easy and employment skills sessions, diabetes workshops and the local food club.
In a cost of living crisis, libraries provide something incredibly powerful: a free, warm, welcoming space where people can learn, access essential services and find community. Radstock library relies heavily on volunteers to run it day to day, and it matters now more than ever.
We must not forget our rural areas, where mobile libraries remain a lifeline. I would like to make sure that they are considered in this debate and in any future library strategy.
Sarah Dyke
My hon. Friend is right: Somerset council operates many mobile libraries across the county, which provide a lifeline to rural villages in Glastonbury and Somerton such as Penselwood, Beercrocombe, Norton-sub-Hamdon, and Baltonsborough, to name a few. The cost of delivering library services has increased, and the recent spiralling costs are coupled with years of under-investment by the previous Conservative administration in Somerset. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government must prioritise funding for local government, because without it vital services like libraries will be vulnerable to cost cutting?
Rural Bus Services
Debate between Sarah Dyke and Anna Sabine(8 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Sarah Dyke
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I absolutely agree that collaboration with contiguous authorities is crucial. We must also provide confidence in bus services to increase footfall and make them more sustainable. I would like to thank the Somerset Bus Partnership for all the work it does to promote bus travel in my county.
In Glastonbury and Somerton, and across Somerset, we are facing a near-constant annual cycle where bus routes are threatened with closure and changes. Every year, the council and bus companies negotiate to come to an agreement to keep the route open for another year. If an agreement is reached, the bus route is saved for a whole cycle of events, until that cycle of events starts again, as a contract comes up for renewal a year later.
Earlier this year, I campaigned to save the 54, 58, 58A, 25 and 28 bus routes, which run through my constituency. Thankfully, Somerset council and First Bus South were able to reach an agreement to keep the routes, but some have had timetable changes imposed on them. Inevitably, some of those routes will be under threat yet again when the agreement needs renewal later this year. That is simply unsustainable.
Anna Sabine (Frome and East Somerset) (LD)
The reintroduction of funding for the Trowbridge to Bath bus service by Bath and North East Somerset council was vital for villages such as Freshford in my constituency. Does my hon. Friend agree that cash-strapped local councils are going to need confirmed, long-term funding commitments to help support those vital services?
Sarah Dyke
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I could not agree more; it is crucial that local authorities are given the funding they need to provide these essential services. Local authorities are once again currently waiting for further information regarding the future of various sources of funding they receive from central Government. I submitted a written question to the new Government in July regarding the future of the bus service improvement plan and BSIP Phase 2 funds. While the response affirmed a commitment to improving bus services as part of their growth mission, it failed to provide specific details of plans.
Rural areas desperately need to see plans and to have those assurances of how vital services can continue to run. Earlier this week, the Government laid forward a statutory instrument that opened up bus franchising for all local authorities in England. I welcome the Government’s ambition to fix the country’s broken buses, but they must understand that bus services outside urban areas face different problems.