Help protect St Just Library’s opening hours

St Just Library is a vital part of our local community, which is why I am so passionate about protecting it for future generations.

Cornwall Council has proposed to cut the library’s opening hours to one full day per week and to two half days. It intends to implement this change from June.

I am opposed to this plan. It was quite clear from the public meeting that I organised recently to let people have a say that many other local people are too.

Apart from St Just Library’s role as a lender of books, it offers our area so much more:

• For lots of local children it is a source of the books they need to help with their education.
• It enables people with no access to the internet to get online.
• Jobseekers get the opportunity to check the vacancies pages in the local newspapers.
• Many local groups use the library to meet, and they can only do so when the Library is open.
• It is a social hub for the community, where older people come into contact with younger generations.
• Library staff provide a service valued by the local community, helping in so many different ways.

St Just is not being singled out for cuts but being a ‘Band 3 library’, is in a group where a cut of 9 hours, from the current opening hours, is proposed.

I plan to point out though that there is unfairness between the resourcing of our rural Library and those in the larger towns. This is a 38% reduction of hours whereas Truro and Penzance only face a cut of 9.5%. St Just starts from a much lower number of hours anyway and I feel that its role as a Tourist Information Centre is being overlooked.

This is a result of budget cuts faced by County Hall and the historically unfair system used to allocate Government money to rural areas. Urban areas get much more money per head of population.

Local people get behind the St Just Library campaign.

Following the recent public meeting held to discuss the future of the library, two further campaign days have been held.

Friday 28^th February was ‘Love St Just Library Friday’.

Local people showed their support by coming along to St Just Library and borrowing as many books as they could carry and leaving the library virtually bare, demonstrating just how much we value our library.

Saturday March 1^{st: Hands off St Just Library}

Local residents joined hands around the library building to show their support for its services and just how much they love the library.

Click here for full details.

Have you signed the online petition, click here to sign it.

Full details about the recent Public Meeting to discuss the future of St Just Library.

The local media are also covering the St Just Library campaign:

The Cornishman: “Cuts may turn St Just Library ‘into a book store’.”

Western Morning News: “Residents fight plans to reduce library opening hours to just one full day.”

For more information on St Just Library click here