REDDITCH Labour has called for answers over where the town centre library’s services and facilities will be located if the building is demolished.
The move comes after new information revealed that unused floor space at the Town Hall is only a seventh of the area of the library.
There has been increasing public concern over proposals to demolish the library with £4.2million of Town Deal money from the Government.
Both Borough Council Leader Councillor Matt Dormer (Con, West) and council chief executive Kevin Dicks have said their preferred option is to relocate the library services to Redditch Town Hall.
A Freedom of Information request to Redditch Borough Council revealed that there are only 321 square metres of unused space in the Town Hall.
The floor space of the existing library is 2,267 square metres – seven times the area of unused space at the Town Hall.
Coun Andy Fry, (Lodge Park) leader of the Labour group on Redditch Borough Council, said: “Redditch library has 51,340 books, 48 public computers and several thousand vintage books, plus irreplaceable historical archive, which is currently kept in a humidity-controlled room.
“It has a range of other facilities, including three meeting rooms for community groups to use, and it accommodates the town’s main JobCentre.
“The Freedom of Information response proves exactly what Redditch Labour have said all along – that the unused space available at the Town Hall falls woefully short of the existing library service.
“We have repeatedly asked to see a plan to show where all the library’s services and facilities would go, and, almost a year later, still nothing has been provided.
“So we oppose the demolition of the library, as we believe this will result in a significant downgrade to a vital public service.”
Last autumn, nearly 1,870 people signed a petition headlined ‘Keep our library at the heart of Redditch – with a guaranteed plan and full services’ to Worcestershire County Council, which is responsible for library services.
Coun Dormer said: “Based on the current square footage of the Town Hall I agree, they are not the same.
“However, once we reconfigure things this will change – walls can come down, different rooms can come in to play.
“If Covid has taught us one thing it is that people are less keen to go into buildings.
“Footfall into Redditch library has halved and shows no sign of getting back to its pre-pandemic levels.
“On the other hand digital subscriptions have rocketed as people change their habits.
“Redditch library has to change or it will die and the one thing I don’t want is for this town to lose its library provision.”
Worcestershire County Council has promised a report setting out plans for the future of the library will be presented to the cabinet after the May elections.
