Stockport Council has been unsuccessful in its application to the Library Improvement Fund, missing out on a share of the £6.3 million pot designated to support the upgrade of facilities and technology in local libraries.
Stockport asked for £493k to transform the children’s offer at four libraries: Reddish, Bredbury, Cheadle Hulme and Great Moor. This would also have helped make more minor improvements at our other library sites.
Leader of Stockport Council, Cllr Mark Roberts, said
“We are disappointed to learn Stockport has been rejected again by this Labour Government for vital funding. In this case it would transform the children’s offer in 4 of our local libraries, something we Lib Dems feel is truly deserving of investment. This is made worse by them shutting out Stockport from the £600 million recovery grant support for deprived areas, leaving out the borough with the most deprived area in the whole of Greater Manchester. It’s difficult to think anything other than we’ve been unfairly treated yet again. We have bold ambitions for our local area and Labour nationally have shown again that they just don’t seem to care.”
“It is particularly difficult to swallow desperate election promises by Labour candidates when their government denies the funding we need for our libraries. We keep seeing Labour taking our community for granted, promising a lot but failing to invest. This funding could have made a huge difference to families in Cheadle Hulme, Bredbury, Great Moor and Offerton in particular and, yet again, the Labour Government have failed to back investment in Reddish. We need action, not words, we need consistent funding, not handouts and we need support, not spin.”
“We know how successful Stockport can be when given the funding we deserve. In its first few months of opening, Stockroom staff needed to order even more books for children and young people because of the high demand for its services. The Liberal Democrats will continue to fight for the Labour government to give Stockport its fair share of funds after years of Conservative chaos, rather than them just throwing money at the places where they desperately think it might rescue them in the local elections.”
The full list of successful bids are here- https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/our-open-funds/libraries-improvement-fund-lif-round-4
