At the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday evening the Labour administration formally decided to remove library services from Stockport Central Library as part of a suite of decisions relating to the new Stockroom proposal.
Stockport’s Liberal Democrats voiced their opposition to this specific part of the proposal since successfully moving a motion in October 2020, requiring a full public consultation be held on the closure of Stockport Central Library as a library. The results of that consultation were overwhelmingly opposed to this aspect of the proposals.
The Lib Dems have therefore used the Council’s process of “call-in” to require that this decision is looked at again by a Scrutiny Committee ahead of a possible discussion and vote at the Full Council Meeting in January.
Speaking after decision was published, Cllr Lou Ankers, Shadow Cabinet Member whose responsibilities include libraries, said: “The Lib Dems want to stand up for the people of Stockport as Labour aren’t listening to their own consultation responses saying not to move library services from Central Library.
“We have no objection to the development of Stockroom – the objection we have is the removal of library services from Central Library against the clear view of the consultation! What is the point of the consultation if it is just going to be ignored in this way?
“Our next step was to use the powers available to us to call in the decision for further scrutiny and hopefully get it discussed again at Full Council so we can tell the Labour administration once again what the residents of Stockport want, as they don’t seem to be listening.”
The scrutiny meeting to discuss this issue will be scheduled shortly.
