Ahead of the Dunchurch Public Meeting last night, I received news that Warwickshire County Council Libraries are offering local people extra help in setting up their own community libraries. This was confirmed in public last night. Full details to follow, for now here are the seven new bullet points:
• Warwickshire County Council is setting aside a one-off capital fund of £100,000 to support communities in the setting up their community library.
• Where the Council accepts a community library business case, and the library building is owned by the Council, it is prepared in principle to lease the premises to a Community Group at a peppercorn rent for an initial period of one year.
• After that, subject to annual review of the services being provided, the lease may continue at a peppercorn rent, or at less than market value, for a period of up to 5 years in total.
• At the end of the 5 year period, a full market rent will be payable.
• The tenant will be responsible for all repairs from the outset.
• Buildings offered at a peppercorn rent for the first year and then reviewed every year for the first 5 years after which the building would have to be paid for at the market rate.
• Current book stock will be available
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Ah, so they've managed to come up with £100K have they? A wonder how many more staff will have to be sacrificed for that little sweetner?
ReplyDeleteIt will be interesting to see how long it takes the library service management to tell it's staff about this. Let's hope the people who work in effected libraries have been informed - their morale must be at rock bottom.
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