NCC Media Release ________________________________________ Issue Date: 25 March 2014 Plans for community partnership library in Annesley Woodhouse Nottinghamshire County Council is considering plans to develop a new community partnership library in Annesley Woodhouse. The county council is in discussions with Ashfield Community Radio and Media Training (ACRMT) to open a new community partnership library within the Acacia Centre. This is likely to provide better access to the library and it is hoped will result in an increase use and library opening hours through the partnership with ACRMT. In November, the county council announced it must make £154m budget savings over the next three years due to challenging budget cuts across the authority. Library managers say they can achieve £1m savings for the authority, partly through an innovative plan to preserve smaller libraries through a community partnership approach, along with a modernisation programme. Councillor John Knight, Committee Chairman for Culture, at Nottinghamshire County Council said: “We are totally committed to our libraries service. In the context of the difficult budget decisions we are having to make across the board as a county council, we need to look at increasingly innovative and creative ways to run our library services – while still offering people a fairer deal. “The proposal for Annesley Woodhouse is that it is ideally placed to be established as a community partnership library through co-locating with ACRMT at the Acacia Centre. “However, what works for one community, may not work for another. We said at the outset when we announced our budget proposals that we would not have a ‘one size fits all’ approach to community partnership libraries.” Annesley Woodhouse Library is currently sited within a village hall and is open for eight hours a week, issuing around 8,000 items and has around 3,350 visitors a year. ACRMT is looking to accommodate the new library within the current office space of the Acacia Centre. The chair of Trustees for ACRMT, Georgina Streets said: “ACRMT are really excited at the proposal of working with the county council to have a community partnership library in the Acacia Centre, this will be beneficial for the centre as it will bring new visitors but likewise we will endeavour to encourage more people to use the library service. Our aim is to make the Acacia Centre the hub of the community, having the library here will help achieve that aim.” The county council would need to invest £70,000 in the scheme, but ACRMT would host the library, provide a managed group of library volunteers and increase the hours that the library is open. The item will be discussed at the Culture Committee’s next meeting on April 1. -ends-
Posted on: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 11:41:07 +0000