Today a few of us attended and spoke in the public contributions section of the meeting to County Councillors on the Scrutiny Committee at County Hall, Exeter.

The mobile libraries were on the agenda because the decision to close them had been called in for scrutiny. There were some excellent points made by a number of councillors (as well as some comments which were less so…)

After hearing views from the majority of councillors on the committee and after quite a lot of confusion and amendments (we thought initially that they’d agreed with the cabinet decision to close the mobile libraries!), eventually the committee voted to send a recommendation back to cabinet, asking them to reconsider the decision to close the mobile libraries, to look at the cost of leasing the vans and also look at other opportunities and partnerships that might be available for the service to make it more cost-effective and to develop alternative provision if a decision is still made to close them. 

It was brilliant to see the cross-party support for the mobile library service, with Cllr Hannaford (labour) proposing the recommendation, Cllr Hodgson (green) seconding, and 2 Liberal Democrat and 2 Conservative councillors voting in support!

The wheels and cogs will keep turning for now…

Please keep sharing the petition, check the mobile library timetable and get borrowing books!  

Comments were made on the mobile library user numbers. We have received the recent figures from libraries unlimited and they are on the increase, only Tiverton mobile has seen a dip this year so please get out there and start using it! Don’t forget there are free audiobooks, CDs and magazine subscriptions as well as thousands of books (and large print). Specific books can also be reserved free of charge that you can then collect from the mobile library.

https://www.devonlibraries.org.uk/web/arena/mobilelibraries

For anyone wishing to see what was said at the meeting follow this link and scroll down to “view the webcast”
https://democracy.devon.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=427&MId=4748