Council launches masterplan to future-proof Bristol’s libraries

A masterplan to make Bristol’s libraries fit for the future has received a mixed reaction amid fears their long-term survival remains uncertain.

City council leaders have launched a four-year strategy and say they should be thanked for their “astonishing achievement” in keeping all 27 branches open, despite planning to close all but ten of them in 2017, an idea they abandoned following a deluge of objections.

But opposition councillors say the glossy 24-page document is not really a strategy but a “series of aspirations” that does not guarantee each library’s future.

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In the strategy’s foreword, the council’s head of libraries, Kate Murray, said: “While we cannot speculate on the number of libraries in the future, we can guarantee a quality, citywide service that is responsive, modern, relevant and sustainable in a changing world where its value to residents is acknowledged, where the service is the best it can be for all of Bristol.”

Its aims include increasing volunteers, making libraries “hubs for community development, organisation and empowerment” and having a friends’ group for each.

The document also envisages wifi printing for users at every branch, longer non-staffed opening hours and extra services from partners such as health, employer support and debt advice.

People packed into a public meeting in Redland Library in 2018 to voice their dismay at the proposed cuts at the time. Photo by Ellie Pipe

Deputy mayor Asher Craig told a Bristol City Council cabinet meeting: “The city has gone through trial and error around the funding and support of libraries going forward.

“We have been able to continue to support the existing 27 libraries across the city within their current locations, staff and opening hours. It is a great achievement we have kept our libraries open while most cities have been forced to close the vast majority of them.

“We consulted on libraries as one of a series of forced consultations of cuts predicated by government cuts of £120m and a black hole of £30m from a previous administration.

“Thanks only to the fiscal responsibility of this administration have we avoided cuts that most cities have had to carry out, and only because of our financial management have we kept libraries and our promises to the city.”

She added the library strategy is the first in more than ten years and gives “a firm foundation on which to build the future”.

Geoff Gollop, a Tory councillor for Westbury-on-Trym and Henleaze, said: “It is comforting that we are not closing 17 libraries. That’s really positive. People value their branch libraries, they see them as natural neighbourhood hubs.

“Building on these findings, we need to explore further how we make use of self-service, of access to those buildings out of hours. We haven’t promoted that as aggressively and actively as we could.”

Craig replied that a huge investment would see new self-service machines installed in the next couple of months and that the council had just awarded innovation funding to 30 community-led projects.

Lib Dem councillor for Cotham Anthony Negus said: “Having a city-wide networked library service has dropped between the cracks in this strategy, which is not really a strategy, it’s a series of aspirations and a framework.”

Craig replied that the strategy was flexible and that the local authority had “committed to a city-wide statutory library service”.

“The core services will remain. However, services naturally develop as needs change,” she said.

“We will work with communities. It will not be just on communities alone to deliver and help their service evolve.”

Martin Fodor, a Green councillor for Redland, told the meeting on Tuesday, February 4: “Other than the overall concepts, the document doesn’t guarantee any revenue or capital, it doesn’t deal with the repairs, it doesn’t deal with how many libraries will be kept open beyond this year and it doesn’t deal with the grants.

“Given these gaps, what does the strategy actually mean?

“What is the value of a strategy that doesn’t actually answer any of these specific funding or staffing issues?”

Craig said: “The library service needed a publicly clear direction of travel. It needed to say especially what actions are a priority and it needed to restore the faith of residents that the engagement and collaboration promised would be delivered.”

Bristol’s newest library in Bishopston opened its doors in 2017. Photo by Ellie Pipe

Adam Postans is a local democracy reporter for Bristol

Main photo inside Bishopston Library, taken by Ellie Pipe

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