Libraries at Court

Friday 17th February

You may already know, but the County Council decision to move toward the Community Partnered Libraries has now been formally subjected to a Judicial Review.
Its difficult to comment specifically about this because of the legal nature, but discussion can certainly continue in the round.

Essentially, a Judicial Review can be applied for whenever an interested party deems that a decision made by a local authority has been made outside of conditions laid down by statute. The merits of the challange are put in front of a Judge to determine whether proper proceedure has been observed and in some cases, the original decision can be overturned.

I sense this is what the purpose of the review is in this case, since there have been questions raised about the already audited information upon which the decision was originally based.

In the meantime, efforts to continue along that route have been stayed in the event that the challenge is successful. My overriding concern remains that, while the Community Partnered model is not ideal, this latest move may in fact urge the powers that be to simply close some of the libraries.

And frankly, no-one wants that.