Camber needs mobile library

The Tory County Council, in an increasingly desperate effort to meet cost-cutting instructions from their Tory bosses in Whitehall, are about to “consult” on closing down the Mobile Library Service.

Local residents will be expected to get on-line, go into Hastings or Rye or Battle or in very limited cases may have access to the Home Library Service.

This is supposedly an “evidence-based” decision. However, to take just one example, Camber will lose the mobile library.

The county’s own needs analysis shows that Camber is in one of the most deprived parts of the county.

It is exactly in such areas that one would expect people to get the most benefit from a modern library service.

Help with literacy, finding jobs, etc.

People who would most benefit in this way are perhaps the least motivated to trek along to the Rye library. The County’s own figures show that people in Camber are also amongst the least likely to have access to the internet.

The Mobile Library service is one of the facilities which helps to maintain the viability of Camber and our other villages.

It provides particular support to the elderly as a point of social contact.

Chipping away at such facilities as the mobile library service will end by causing irreparable social damage.

It’s very difficult to see how the county’s own “evidence” can possibly justify closing the Mobile Library Service.

Let’s hope that Tory County Councillors can be persuaded to throw this anti-social proposal out.