Stradbroke Parish Council's response to Suffolk Library Consultation

Stradbroke Parish Council unanimously agreed their response to Suffolk County Council's library consultation at the last meeting.

The response makes it clear that "Stradbroke Parish Council would prefer that Suffolk County Council remained as the direct provider of library services across Suffolk" and then goes on to offer several criticisms of the consultation process.


The Parish Council suggest the library would be best run in the existing Courthouse building after considering Stradbroke Business and Enterprise College and the Community Centre as alternative sites.

A plan for the Parish Council to run the library is put forward with the following as context:

"However, given the resolute refusal to date of SCC to consider [continuing to run libraries], we are putting forward suggestions of how Stradbroke Library may remain open and serving the residents of Stradbroke and the surrounding villages and hamlets.

The suggested plan is that Suffolk County Council transfer the Courthouse Building to the Parish Council and devolve revenue funding to the Parish Council:

Our suggestion is that the whole of the 2010 funding level of £50,450 less 30% is devolved to the PC, and we will fund all the required costs associated with the library. We would need to buy in certain services from either SCC or another provider e.g. stock provision, ICT etc...The model for this arrangement would be the one used for schools’ governance. There is sufficient expertise within SCC to manage this arrangement, and we have expertise and experience of this approach within the village.

If you wish to submit your own personal response to the Suffolk County Council consultation you can do so until the end of April at:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/librariesconsultation2011

NOTE: You only need answer Q7 if you just want to comment about the future of library services, Suffolk County Council have accepted not all the questions may be relevant to individuals

You can read the full response below:
StradbrokeLibraryConsultationResponse