The Hartlepool Mail published an article earlier this year to confirm that Blackhall library, along with all others in county Durham, would remain open following my resolution to the county council's Labour Group (see article on this site dated 12 April 2012 for further details).
The council is to begin a consultation exercise on Monday to gauge public opinion on proposed opening hours and further details are given below:
Have your say on library changes
People
will have the chance to decide on new opening hours for their local library
from next week.
A
consultation on changes to opening times at libraries across County Durham begins
on Monday, 6 August and will run until Friday, 28 September.
People
who use the mobile library service, which stops in 37 communities, will also be
invited to give their views on where it should stop in the future.
Durham
County Council is reducing opening hours and changing its mobile service in
response to significant Government funding reductions, which mean it has to
save approximately £180m between 2011 – 2017.
Cllr Maria Plews, Durham County Council’s Cabinet
member for leisure, libraries and lifelong learning, said: “By making changes to our
library service we will be able to keep all our libraries open despite the
financial pressures we are currently operating under.
“It
is important though that people who use the service are able to influence these
changes so I would encourage residents to have their say during the
consultation.”
Library-users
can fill in a survey at their local library, giving their choice of preferred
hours from a number of options. These options have been put together to reflect
factors specific to each library, such as current busy times of day, market
days and other issues. At those libraries where there will be only a small
reduction in opening hours, one option will be similar to existing opening
times.
People
who use the mobile library service should have received a questionnaire about
which settlements they would like the library to visit in the future. Questionnaires
are also available from the mobile library.
The
council has 27 community and 12 town centre libraries, including Clayport, in
Durham, where opening hours have already been reduced.