image credit: Ore Community Library Group
After a long fight, something that will be familiar to residents in Pevensey Bay, Ore is to have community library
The library has been established by a group of campaigners working together, who understand not just the principles behind the public library service, but the need to establish sustainable models for a service in relation to the community that they serve.
Talking on their page, the group says “Congratulations everybody, and thanks for all the hard work!!
“Our proposal to reopen Ore Library has been approved! Well done us! Now the planning begins. We have to do a lot of work to agree Heads of Terms with ESCC, become a charity, raise funds”
The constitution utilised by the group has a structure that includes a committee, chairperson treasurer and secretary.
ESCC in their report (15 October) which recommended approval suggested “OCLG (Ore Community Library Group) intend to work towards charitable status. They are working closely with Hastings Voluntary Action (HVA). The proposal is to create a volunteer-led Community Library in the former Ore Library building in Old London Road, Ore, Hastings”
One of the interesting aspects of the ESCC report to approve the group plan is the possibility of a community asset transfer at some point in the future to the group. The report says, “however, the option would remain for the County Council at the end of the lease period to sell the freehold or to consider an alternative use of the site, including a community asset transfer”.
In their media release (16 October), East Sussex County Council said, “a community group has been given the go-ahead to reopen a former library in Hastings.
“East Sussex County Council’s lead member for resources, Cllr Nick Bennett, has approved a proposal to lease the Ore Library building to Ore Community Library Group.
“The newly-formed group will take on a three-year peppercorn lease for the building, its fixtures and fittings and a selection of stock and run the facility as a Community Library.
Cllr Nick Bennett added: “We’re grateful for the submission of interest from this group and are pleased to be able to support their proposal for a community facility, which I’m sure will be welcomed by people in Ore.”
Ore was one of the seven libraries closed by the county council in May last year. ESCC described their decision in the report as “part of a revised libraries strategy aimed at creating a modern and sustainable library service in the light of Government funding cuts”.
Councillor Bill Bentley, Lead Member for Communities said: “Ore Community Library Group have shown a real commitment to reopening the building and have put forward a credible plan for its future.
On hearing the news about the approval of the plan for Ore Community Library, Simon Montgomery, editor of the Pevensey Bay Journal said, “this is about as good as things get, this group has clearly worked tirelessly and in context, understanding both the context of a public library service and the need to be accountable to the local community that the new library will serve”.
He added, ‘the Pevensey Bay Journal lobbied hard for this kind of community model to be established here in Pevensey Bay, supporting the work of the Friends of Pevensey Bay Library”.
Pevensey Bay Library is currently set up as a community interest company run by dedicated volunteers.
Simon said,”without question what we are seeing here is a dedicated bank of volunteers, who are impassioned and full of great ideas.
“Having said that, here in Pevensey Bay, the problem is that all this work could just winnow in the wind without accountable structures in place to support the dedication.
“To be sustainable a local community library must have structures that are acknowledged at some statutory level, in my view.
“A community library that has charitable status, is much more likely to become sustainable.
“This is the route being followed both with the Ore Community Library project and at Langney Community Library, where the same principles are being employed.
“One simple point, with charitable status comes a statutory link with the principles behind the 176 year story of the public library service in this country.
“That is why the depth of support enjoyed in these kinds of community libraries do not just register history and legacy, they also demonstrate sustainability. They embed themselves in local communities.
“You do not have to look very far to understand why and how this sense in local communities is carried through down the generations.
“Charitable institutions, as we understand them, began with the birth of the Age of Enlightenment, during the 19th century there was an explosion of interest in them.
“The great social reforms of the 19th century, in particular the campaigns of the chartists led to the birth of the library movement, but they also led to the birth of the Charity Commission.
“The first public library in the country was at Salford, Greater Manchester, opened to the public in November 1850 as the Royal Museum and Public Library. The Charity Commission was established by the Charitable Trusts Act of 1853, less than three years later.
“The two institutions came from exactly the same root at the same time in history, that is why together they can still move the same mountains that they moved in the 1850s. Charitable status is within the DNA of libraries in this country”.
The history of the library movement in this country is a beacon of hope . The history speaks to us every day in the kind of root and branch work being undertaken by the Ore Community Library group, here in East Sussex.
Bay Life understands that the campaigning work done by the Ore Community Library Group is to feature on BBC South East this Sunday (20 October) on the Sunday Politics Show.
An inspiring interview with Juliet Harris, co-chair of the Ore Community Library group is available here on Soundcloud
The interview, conducted by Hastings in Focus explains, “campaigners in Ore won the right to reopen their library this week when East Sussex County Council approved a bid by Ore Community Library Group. The group co-chair Juliet Harris talks about what happens next”.
