Sunday 28 October 2012

Wokingham privatisation pulled?

I spotted this on Public Libraries News, it's from Prue Bray a Lib Dem Councillor in Wokingham

Wokingham libraries: a victory for common sense – and for the Lib Dems
Wokingham Conservatives have decided NOT to proceed with outsourcing the running of the libraries to the private sector.
They first announced they were going to do it in May 2011. We collected signatures for a massive Lib Dem petition against it, which led to a debate in November 2011. And now finally they have accepted that it wasn’t the right thing to do either financially or for the service. Which was what we said at the start……
David Lee, Conservative Leader of the Council, described the Lib Dem campaign to save the libraries as “laughable” in the Reading Chronicle last year:
http://www.readingchronicle.co.uk/news/roundup/articles/2011/06/19/52628-library-outrage-sparks-petition/
I bet he’s not laughing now.

also this from Matthew Dent;

http://matthewsdent.wordpress.com/2012/10/27/wokingham-libraries-not-to-be-sold-off/

and this which seems to confirm the news

http://savewokinghamslibraries.org/

"The future of library services in the Wokingham Borough was discussed last night (October 25)
by Wokingham Borough Council’s decision-making executive.

Executive member for internal services Cllr Pauline Jorgensen said: “The council has been
working with interested parties in a competitive dialogue process to see if there are ways that
we can work with the private sector to improve the library service we offer. The result is that we
haven’t been convinced there will be enough benefits for our library users to continue with the
process. We also don’t want to take the risk the key objectives would not be achieved for our
users."


 

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