On Saturday 10 September 2016, the community officially celebrated something special, Pevensey Bay Library has reopened.—Bay Life 11 September 2016
County Councillor Chris Dowling, lead member for community services, who has done much to see that the cause of Pevensey Bay Library has remained on the agenda of the County Council, was welcomed as he came to mark the moment.
He was joined by senior management staff of the Library services in the County, our fabulous local library staff and the Friends of Pevensey Bay Library, together with residents, their families and their children.
Pevensey Parish Councillor, Helen Burton, talking in a personal capacity said (10 September), “lovely to see the library up and running this morning! It’s looking better than ever and there was a great atmosphere. Well done to all involved in getting our library back!”
They joined together over tea and biscuits with activities for children to mark the moment that Pevensey Bay Library reopened after an eighteen month community campaign, that got reported in the press as far afield as Portsmouth.
It was a moment that will be remembered by the people that were present.
With so many library cuts to come across the country and the county in the coming year, doubts still remain about what ail happen next in little Pevensey Bay Library.
There is a new fresh carpet, the ceiling has been painted, there are state of the art facilities.
The people that talked to Bay Life about the event, remarked on the relaxed atmosphere and the way in which both Councillor Chris Dowling and the senior management staff of the Library Services in East Sussex were happy to talk to people about the reopening and what might happen next with the precious resource.
What might happen next with the precious local resource? Is it possible that with the kind of joined up thinking proposed by the Friends of Pevensey Bay Library and the County Council, that we might be seeing further developments?
In the face of 25% cuts in library hours across the county and a total planned cut of £750,000 to library service, it seems like something of an uphill and perhaps impossible struggle to see that our precious library service is maintained at the kinds of quality level that we now see on the site.
With such a wide catchment area and level of support in our communities demonstrated over the last eighteen months, who can doubt that the will is there to see the service maintained.
Our view is that the revolution may have already started.
Libraries Unlimited in Devon, the new independent public service mutual set up by the County Council and tasked with delivering Devon’s library service has been operational since April 2016.
It is a new way of working with library services across a county for the 21st century.
We understand that Councillor Chris Dowling made mention of what is happening in Devon with the library services with his visit to Pevensey Bay Library on Saturday, to be part of the celebrations.
The new Chief Executive of Libraries Unlimited in Devon is Ciara Eastell. She describes her vision for Devon libraries as being, “Leading Libraries Unlimited – a new staff and community owned mutual, commissioned to deliver library services across Devon from April 2016 with a vision of bringing ideas, imagination, knowledge and creativity to people’s lives and communities”.
These thoughts chime with what has been said by the Friends of Pevensey Bay Library over the last eighteen months.
Against all the odds, in this tiny rural location in the corner of Sussex, are we seeing the possibility of the renaissance of local library services in some new form?
In the week of opening, a local librarian usually on duty elsewhere in the county talked to us about how marked it was that Pevensey Bay Library was a social hub.
It was interesting to see that Councillor Chris Dowling, also talked in October 2014, about how libraries are becoming part of a community hub.
At the cutting of the ribbon at the Seaford Library Complex, which joins a number of facilities, the lead member for community services said, “the people of Seaford now have a great new facility which we hope will become a thriving community hub”.
It is possible to see Pevensey Bay Library as a maintained service, thriving in some way in the continuing Age of Austerity?
If this was to be the case, than all the joined up thinking that has taken place between the County Council and the Friends of Pevensey Bay Library may have long term merit.
The Saturday celebration can be seen not as the culmination of their work linked together, but the start of planning the next stage.
For the next three months we understand, nothing particular is planned, but the moveable shelving units, that turn into potential talks areas appear to have been demonstrated with enthusiasm by local library staff on Saturday.
in the view of Bay Life what we are seeing in our local library is a possible paradigm for a local rural library of the 21st century in this very special corner of East Sussex.
If Michael Morpurgo and Jo Brand were to come calling with potential book visits in the spring of 2017 to Pevensey Bay Library, it is reasonable to assume that the County Council would look favourably on the possibility of such events.
Those moveabale shelving units could swing into action and act as a gateway into the world of a shared hub that could become the talk of the town.
Who can discount the possibility that what the Friends of Pevensey Bay Library working together with the County Council has achieved here is something special?
Perhaps there is more to the temporary solution than is immediately obvious in the balloons on show on Saturday
The brand new yellow markings on the steps mark the way.
The strategic thinking of the Friends of Pevensey Bay Library in which they dreamed at some point in the future of a local library fit for the 21st century, may already have been in the air in conversation on Saturday.
Libraries are already unlimited in Devon.
So good hear that a senior county councillor and senior library management staff took time out in their busy schedules, many of them on their day off, to come to Pevensey Bay and join the residents and their families and friends and the Friends of Pevensey Bay Library, in an event that marked the day that the library reopened.
Congratulations to East Sussex County Council Library Services for their organisation of a well measured event on Saturday.
