The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
Campaigners have won a stay of execution for Lincolnshire’s library service after a High Court battle.
London’s High Court ruled this morning that Lincolnshire County Council needed to look again at its plans to reshape the library service in a bid to save £1.9million.
It had planned to to close libraries, get rid of more than 100 mobile library stops and cut up to 170 jobs, prompting a call for a judicial review by campaigners on the grounds of the possibly illegal nature of the consultation process as the decision had already been taken, the failure to deal with harm caused to people under the Equalities Act and the failure of the council’s plan to provide a comprehensive public library service under the Libraries Act..
Following a two-day hearing, the court set aside the original decision meaning that proposed changes to services will need to be reviewed by the council’s Executive after an additional period of consultation.
Richard Wills, Executive Director, said: “We are, of course, disappointed with the decision.
“We believe that our proposals would have increased library provision in the county, while also making substantial savings, meaning taxpayers would be getting a much better deal.
“The judge agreed there was a need to make savings, that our proposals would meet our statutory duties and that we’d carefully considered the impact on all residents.
“However, his decision means we will now need to undertake further consultation and re-examine the proposal from Greenwich Leisure Ltd.
“Ironically, although we must consider that proposal as a community offer to take over the council’s services under the Localism Act, it could lead to the library service being put out to procurement and outsourced to a commercial organisation.
“We will now address the points raised by the judge and remain open-minded.
“However, we need to take time to consider the best way forward, and will announce our next steps in the near future.
“In the meantime, we’ll continue to keep in close contact with the communities wanting to become involved in running library services.
“What this judgement doesn’t change is the need for us to find further yearly savings of £90m by 2018.”
