Live Argyll only has one facility on the Rosneath Peninsula – and its future looks very uncertain.
Rosneath’s library has been closed for more than two years, and assurances that its future is ‘being looked into’ don’t inspire confidence.
It isn’t the only facility currently closed by Live Argyll – Tiree’s library is also shut for ‘operational reasons’ – and it wouldn’t be the first to close in this area: Rhu and Garelochhead have both lost their libraries, while Cove’s is run by volunteers after Argyll and Bute Council reneged on a promise to keep it open and pay rental to support the burgh hall (which the council had also closed).
The aim when Live Argyll was formed was that it would ‘deliver services that help young and old live healthy, happy lives’, with the council saying: “Being a charitable trust, it offers many financial and commercial benefits that can help sustain the future of services at a time when there is growing pressure on public spending.”
Those potential benefits may have been realised – but we don’t know, since the trusts which several Scottish councils have set up to run leisure centres, libraries and halls don’t operate in the public eye.
Strict laws which mean that most council meetings are held in public don’t apply to trusts, and so minutes and agendas of Live Argyll meetings which are held in private could be politely described as minimalist.
Whoever ‘looks into’ the future of the libraries in Rosneath and on Tiree will do so in private, on the basis of documents we’re not shown.
So it’s important that pressure to reopen libraries is put on the three elected councillors who sit on Live Argyll’s board (sorry, for some reason its website doesn’t say who the board members are, so lobbying your local councillor is the best bet).
Access to books and public computers should not be denied because of decisions made behind closed doors – as one person said earlier this week, going to Helensburgh’s library by bus to choose books can take three hours, which is simply unacceptable.
I’m writing this in Cove Community Library, just along the road from Knockderry Castle where in 1901 Andrew Carnegie wrote to Glasgow’s Lord Provost promising £100,000 – the equivalent of £13.6m today – to establish branch libraries in the city.
Access to books and the internet is just as important for ‘happy and healthy lives’ now as it was then, and it’s time for Live Argyll to recognise this.
Leave a Reply