A protest against planned cuts to the library service was held this evening (Thursday) in front of York Explore.
It came before the crunch City of York Council budget meeting, where savings of £14m were being proposed by the ruling Labour group to stave off potential bankruptcy.
As part of this, a £300,000 a year cut to the city library service is proposed for the next two years, which has prompted widespread dismay.
The opposition Lib Dems organised the rally. Cllr Andrew Hollyer described the library cuts plan as “a total bolt out of the blue.
“There’s been no consultation at all with anybody. There doesn’t even seem to have been any consultation with the library service itself.
“It was a total shock, particularly as we’ve got that long term contract with our library provider, which is supposed to be providing them the certainty so that they can provide those services for the medium to long term.”
The Labour group said they were having to make the cuts owing to the previous Lib Dem and Green administration’s failure to tackle the council’s long-term financial problems. Cllr Hollyer rejected that, saying that the coalition set a balanced budget every year.
“One of the things we’re putting forward today is the government has given us an additional amount of money that Labour weren’t expecting when they set their budget.
“And we’ve seen councils across the country using that money to stave off some of the worst impacts of the cuts.”
He said he hoped Labour would support their amendment to use that money to reverse some of the proposed cutbacks.
And he added that there had been a groundswell of support for the library service, with more than 3,000 people signing a petition to keep the library service funding.
The Labour administration has said it is confident it can reach agreement with the Explore York library service over the funding reduction.