Greetings All, As planned, on Tuesday 24th April, I presented the Save Ealing’s Libraries from Being Outsourced Petition at the 24th April Council Meeting (which was essentially the Open Letter slightly updated: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zef8xi1d8jmp3io/Open%20Letter%20to%20the%20Leader%20of%20Ealing%20Council%20in%20Support%20of%20the%20Save%20Ealing%20Libraries%20Petition%20April%2022nd%202018.pdf?dl=0). In Councillor Dheer’s response he commended the campaign, which he noted, has mobilised local support from Ealing residents and librarian professionals directly affected by Carillion’s collapse, as well as attracting protesting voices from up and down the UK and abroad. Councillor Dheer also pointed to various financial investments that the council has injected into the library service in recent years. He held that, unlike many London and regional boroughs around that have made extensive cuts to their library services, Ealing has managed to keep open all of its 13 libraries. According to him, this is in spite of having most of its central government funding severed. There was applause to this point. Echoing Councillor Bell’s recent response to the Open Letter from 50 local campaigners, Councillor Dheer seemed to initially imply that the Council’s ‘swift’ action in early February 2018 to bring the library service back in-house was an automatic, pragmatic decision, following Carillion’s demise; and wasn’t at all attributable to the expressed concerns of petitioners. This was, for me, a contradiction, the fact that Councillor Dheer was impressed by the widespread, high profile campaign against the outsourcing of Ealing’s Libraries, which apparently had no bearing on the Council’s decision to take back control of its Libraries. Before the end of Councillor’s Dheer’s speech he corrected himself and added that the Council had listened to the petitioners. When Councillor Dheer stressed that Ealing ‘should be proud of keeping all its libraries open,’ it’s also worth noting that he forgot to mention that in 2011 there was another hard-fought local campaign, which saw Councillors and residents present seven separate petitions signed by over 8,000 residents in support of four libraries (Hanwell Library, Northfields Library, Northolt Leisure Centre and Perivale Library) to prevent their closure by the ruling Labour council. The Council was persuaded to reverse its decision except for the mobile library which did get axed: http://www.ealingtoday.co.uk/default.asp?section=info&page=ealibraryresult003.htm. In my final comment to Councillor Dheer’s presentation I raised concerns about the risks of further deterioration of Ealing’s Library service, caused by impending budget cuts, the extension in the use of ‘ghost’ libraries, and the reduction in the numbers of fully trained library staff.