Green MSP Marks Book Week With Library Letter To Councillors
Green MSP Ross Greer wrote to the Liberal Democrat and Conservative leaders of East Dunbartonshire Council during Scottish Book Week, (19-25 November), calling on them to secure the future of three libraries which have been earmarked for closure.
EDLC, (the arms-length trust which operate leisure and culture services on behalf of the council), decided to recommend three libraries- Westerton, Lenzie and Craighead in Milton of Campsie - for closure. The council will be asked to make a final decision as part of next year’s budget. Communities in all three areas have been setting up campaigns to save their libraries.
Ross Greer, Green MSP for the West of Scotland and East Dunbartonshire resident, said:
“These libraries are all at the heart of their communities and I’ve written to the leaders of the council, Andrew Polson and Vaughan Moody, in support of calls to keep them all open. The issues and solutions may be subtly different in each case, but it’s important not to play off the needs of one community against another.
“Having spoken to users of all three of these libraries, I’m aware that many of them feel that this decision has been on the cards for some time and that their libraries have been “run down”, for example by reducing opening hours. The council needs to show more love to its local libraries and help them thrive, rather than see decreased usage as a sign of low demand, rather than an inevitable result of previous budget cuts.
“I’ll be doing my bit to negotiate more money for local services such as libraries in the Scottish Budget. Green MSPs are proud to have put nearly £6.5 million back into East Dunbartonshire Council’s hands over the last 2 years with the intention that it will invest in services like this, not cut them. In the longer term, we need to reform local taxation to find fairer and more varied solutions than the outdated and unfair council tax to ensure we can fund everything from libraries to schools to bin collections and so much more.”