People across Birmingham have been writing to the Council to protest against the proposed cuts to our library service. We invite people to share their letters with us. Here is one on behalf of a library that has served its community for over 100 years.
To whom it may concern:
I am unable to attend the Stirchley Library consultation on 4 September 2024 in person. Here is what I would like to contribute.
Stirchley Library is not simply a collection of services and resources. It is an essential part of the local community and thus as unique and nuanced as the community it serves and helps maintain. There is no other library like it in my opinion.
As a child of immigrants to Birmingham, Stirchley Library was my childhood library, laying the foundation for a lifelong love of reading, learning and writing, and later on a career in journalism. As a middle-aged adult still living and working in Stirchley, I use the library more than ever – many times a week for a wide range of services. It is, by all recent measures, a thriving library by attendance, events, internet services and book borrowing.
After nearly 120 years as a local library serving its local community, how can a much used, useful and beloved library be rock bottom on Birmingham City Council’s priority list? I’d like to know by what exact criteria it has been ranked 35th out of the city’s 35 libraries? I don’t ever want to compare libraries but something is wrong in the consultation for this to be the case. Questions need to be answered on how the stats have been measured to assess its viability and by what factors Stirchley is considered less in need than other areas.
The following points outline the importance and benefits of this particular library to me personally. It is clear to me that closing this library will incur huge costs down the line in exchange for small short-term savings.
1. I read an average of 35-45 books a year, the vast majority of which I get on loan via Stirchley Library. I’m 56. This library helps prevent my mental deterioration, which would become a future cost in council services needed.
2. I walk to Stirchley Library and back 2-3 times a week. My other potential libraries are 1.5 to 3 miles away and I do not think I would visit nearly as frequently. Walking to the library helps prevent my physical decline, which would become a future cost in council services needed. The walk also engages me with my local area and community, which a bus or car journey would not.
3. As a remote worker and taxpayer, libraries are a significant part of what I want my council to fund. My library offers me education, learning, social connection to others living in the Stirchley area and community cohesion. My library is uplifting and helps prevent isolation, loneliness and associated issues, which would become a future cost on council services.
4. Stirchley Library is a free, calm and welcoming place to visit. External consultants may assume the Stirchley Baths ‘community centre’ is an alternative venue for events, but the reality is that I can’t spend very long in there – the nature of the former baths makes it visually and acoustically difficult to be in, and I have several autistic family members who can’t visit there at all. Stirchley Baths is a valuable resource but not comparable with the Stirchley Library. We should and can have both.
5. I take a young autistic family member to Lego Club and other events at Stirchley Library. The programming is excellent and the staff supportive. The library gives us a place to go that is safe, inclusive and understanding of difference. It provides mental health services that soak up costs that might otherwise fall on the council.
6. Stirchley has lost all of its large leisure facilities to supermarket development in the past 20 years. The indoor bowls centre, ten-pin bowling alley and games arcade, and Fitness First gym are now an Aldi and Lidl (making four supermarkets in this small area). Leisure is now predominantly centred on the younger night-time economy. I don’t drink, so Stirchley Library is my only current source of somewhere to go to enjoy social activities with others.
7. I attend the art club at Stirchley Library every week – not only has this helped my mental health but it has fuelled my creative thinking and I’ve made a new set of friends who live locally. My library provides social connection and positivity, and prevents isolation, which reduces the long-term need for mental health services.
8. I am personally invested in Stirchley Library and have been involved in running activities there, as are many members of the local community. A professionally staffed and resourced library enables citizens to share their knowledge and experience of the world with their neighbours. It is not a one-way street. I am at pains to state again that this would not happen for Stirchley residents at a library over a mile away shared with many other communities.
9. I work as a website editor and am therefore highly digitally literate, often helping others to navigate online services. As such I am very aware of the digital divide and how large numbers of people are being disadvantaged by the digitisation of essential services. The library provides informal and soft services around digital exclusion – an issue that is only going to get worse.
Related to this, I would like to advocate for other library users who don’t have internet access or even know that this consultation is going on. I’ve heard people sorting out things that most of us take for granted around jobs, bills and benefits. People come to Stirchley Library because they have no one else to talk to all day, because they need respite from their problems, and because it offers an information lifeline. If this library closes, these needs will have to be accommodated elsewhere, or left to fester building up bigger issues in the future.
10. We have already had a taste of the effect the loss of our library will have. Closing on Thursdays has had a detrimental effect on me and other Stirchley library users, from the jigsaw club and art sessions to internet access and book borrowing. We need our library open more often, not less, to facilitate and encourage use. The cost savings from consolidating or closing libraries, or reducing hours, is a drop in the ocean when compared with the benefits and future cost impacts. But once closed, the library is gone forever.
I strongly oppose any cuts to Stirchley Library. This library needs to be kept open.
Fiona Cullinan
Lifelong Stirchley resident and user of Stirchley Library
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