FOUR borough councillors have raised their concerns about the new Libraries Unlocked scheme operating at Redditch Library.
Worcestershire County Council announced the scheme, which increases the amount of time libraries are open, starts this week in Redditch.
Libraries Unlocked is a free membership upgrade which allows users aged 15 and over to access the library outside staffed hours, from 8am to 8pm, Monday to Saturday.
In Redditch, the staffed hours are 9am until 5pm on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, from 9am to 1pm Wednesday and Friday and 9am until 4pm on Saturday.
Coun Sharon Harvey, Jane Spilsbury, Juliet Barker Smith and Monica Stringfellow have written to Worcestershire County Council to seek reassurance the county has done its due diligence to ensure library users are safe during the unstaffed hours.
They said: “We recognise opening the library outside regular hours may benefit some residents but we are incredibly disappointed to see Wednesday mornings and Friday afternoons will be part of these ‘unlocked’ hours.
“This equates to closure for residents who require assistance and support from library staff.
“Those residents may be disabled, vulnerable or elderly.”
As part of the scheme, under 15s cannot use the Libraries Unlocked system unaccompanied – the councillors said that rendered the service closed to most high school pupils on Friday after school.
They are also asking what safety measure will be put in place to ensure women and girls feel safe in an unstaffed building.
“The Redditch people have demonstrated their love and commitment to our town centre library with a lengthy and successful campaign to prevent its demolition.
“As the second busiest library in the county, it is vital we protect our services from further attack.
“Our library is precious and must be protected.
“Its role across the community – in terms of leisure, education, support and crisis prevention – must never be denigrated or undervalued.
“We hope the council recognises these very real concerns and will be able to provide adequate and robust assurances.”
Coun Ian Cresswell, cabinet member for environment and communities at Worcestershire County Council, said: “We’ve received the letter expressing concerns about the roll-out of Libraries Unlocked at Redditch Library, and will respond in full to the points raised.
“We would like to reassure residents the open library service model, on which Worcestershire’s Libraries Unlocked service is based, is a well-established approach in the UK public library sector and has proven to be a safe and effective way of extending community access to libraries since first being introduced in 2014.
“We have listened to customer concerns about using the library when staff are not present and have looked at good practice in other library authorities to identify a range of measures to promote customer safety during Libraries Unlocked opening hours.”
