News In The Hebden Bridge List

Labour Concerned With The Future Of Halifax Central Library

Calderdale Councilor Barry Collins of the Labour Group on Calderdale Council is calling for a major review of the controversial decision to move the Halifax Central Library to the new Broad Street Development.

Cllr Collins said – “The Labour Group is really concerned about this proposal – and with good reason:

The new library appears to be much smaller and it would boot out the archives from the centre of Halifax. As the excellent letter from Professor Hudson stated (Courier, 10th March), this would be a disaster: Describing our existing archive he said: “very few towns and cities in Britain can boast such a state-of-the-art facility, easily reachable by public transport”.

We have also listened to the Calderdale Pensioners Association whose petition to keep the Library at Northgate attracted over 500 signatures.

A new library should be better than the one it replaces – does anyone really believe that to be true?”

Labour group leader Cllr Tim Swift added: “When the decision was taken to vacate Northgate House, all the main groups accepted that it made sense to try to release the whole site for redevelopment. But it’s becoming clear that we should have given more thought to the future of the library.

“Before the Council is finally committed to demolishing the existing library, we need to look again.

“The Library is one of the best mainly free services that the Council provides for local people. If we are to make changes, they must be changes for the better. That’s why the Labour group is now saying that before a final decision is made, we must look again at all the options, including a complete redesign of the new Library so that it will be big enough to provide a top class service and keep the Archives here in the centre of Halifax.

We should also look again at the case for keeping the existing Library and Archives open at Northgate.

The Broad Street development is vital for the future of the town. But we must not let the need to drive on with that scheme blind us to the risks of damaging valued and important local services. There are other possible uses for the space at Broad Street which could be explored – The Labour Group believes that unless huge changes are made to current plans, the Library and the Archives must stau put!.”