Members of the Ross-on-Wye Library Development Group visited the Herefordshire Council Offices on Friday, November 20th to hand in the petition that they have organised to show the level of support for Ross Library.

Members of the RLDG were outraged when they discovered that the library, which is housed in a modern, purpose built award winning building, was once again under threat. They immediately set out to collect signatures on a petition.

The group had been out in the town at 12 sessions to ensure that everyone who wanted to, had the opportunity to sign the petition. They collected 7,639 signatures online and on the printed forms which, if verified by the Council, should trigger a debate in the council.

Jan Falkiner, chair of the Ross group, told the Ross Gazette that people had been so supportive and eager to sign. She said that they were a mixture of local people and visitors to Ross. Jan explained that people staying in the area visited the library to use the computers for a variety of reasons.

One person who signed added the comment:?“Let’s hope that the voices of all who signed the petition will finally be heard – and our valued, full professional library service will remain in place.”

David Ravenscroft, who is also a Town Councillor and Deputy Mayor of Ross-on-Wye,Virginia Morgan, Howard Eldridge and Clare West from the development group also attended the petition hand-in.

Councillor Tony Johnson, who accepted the petition, told the group:?“We are trying to take 45 percent out of our budget. We can’t do that by turning the lights off early but we are getting better at finding different ways to do things. We may have to use voluntary resources to fill the gaps.”

He told the group that volunteers had come forward to run the library in his own ward of Colwall.

He added:?“We are obliged to make a number of decisions which are not popular and we want people to know that they are not taken lightly. We want to get elected next time so we don’t want to upset people or let them feel we don’t care.”

Clare West told him that they are aware of the great pressure the council is under with endlessly reduced funding.

It is estimated the council will need to save an additional £42 million during this year and the next four financial years.

Herefordshire Council ran a budget consultation from July to October to ask residents how they think the council should prioritise their budget, including whether libraries should be a priority.

There were 1,979 responses to the budget consultation and 52% said ‘reducing customer services and libraries across the county’ was their least preferred option to save money.

Jan added:?“I think the council has been very surprised by the response to the library proposals.” She said that not only is the library very popular but the Dennis Potter room is well used, although opening in the evening means relying on library staff to volunteer to be on the premises. She said that libraries are about so much more than books.

Councillor Johnson said that the reponse is a very small percentage of those who pay council tax. To stage a referendum to increase the council tax would cost £300,000 and from past experience people would say no. He said that this council is looking at other ways of increasing revenue and is in talks with MPs Jesse Norman and Bill Wiggins about fairer funding for the county.