Essex County Council rejects chance to listen to the public

Essex county councillors voted down calls yesterday to abandon their swingeing cuts to library services. An extraordinary council meeting was called after nearly 60,000 people signed petitions condemning a consultation on the future of libraries that will close at least 25. A further 18 libraries will close if no volunteer groups can be found to […]

Library closures: council threatens to rip the heart out of Essex communities

Essex County Council has announced plans to close a third of its libraries and draft in volunteers to keep others running. The council is launching a consultation, running for 12 weeks from 29 November on closing 25 libraries, handing 18 over to be fully run by volunteers, giving volunteers a greater role at 16 more, […]

Save our Southend libraries

UNISON members from the Southend branch spent last Thursday visiting their local libraries as part of the annual Save Our Local Services campaign. This year’s SOS challenged the government’s library cuts and defended our precious library services and library workers.             The campaign highlighted how important  libraries and library workers […]