What an incredible start to our campaign!  Thank you to all 500 of you for signing our online petition.

We’re delighted to see just how strongly the local community feels about Peterborough City Council’s plan to dispose of the building and come up with some other way to deliver library services in Woodston.  We believe the council don’t have true figures of users of the library - they say it’s underused but the only figures they trust are headcount’s by the library staff - they don’t even count the self-service users who enter the building with their library cards when there are no staff present.

We have a fight on our hands, and the starting point is to get an urgent meeting with those responsible in the council for the library service to work with our group.  We want them to agree to let us use the library for extra events and services.  We want extended opening times and we have 25 volunteers already who are willing to help with staffing the building, running groups and events and help to maintain the small garden space.  

All we need is for the Council to meet us half-way and to stop stalling us with “nothing can be done until the localities review reports” line.  We were delighted to see our new MP, Sam Carling, who met with the organisers on Saturday and promised to help in getting the Council staff to change their position and get the library used properly by the community.

Our 25-strong campaign group are planning to hold a meeting at the end of the month to drive the campaign forward, so we can set up a more formal structure and get extended opening times, additional services and opening up our library for different groups to use.  We already have a new “Knit and Natter” group being set up by one of our volunteers, who want to meet in the library.

if you feel able to support the campaign group yourself in a more active way, we have a number of different roles that we are setting up, from online campaigning to volunteering your time on various activities we are planning at the library.  Just join our Friends of Woodston Library Facebook group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/403526218898775 

Message us with your email details, and we’ll put you on our email circulation list.

Thanks again to all of you for supporting our campaign to keep Woodston Library open!