St James Residents' Association

For The Residents And Workers Of St James

Thursday 3 February 2011

Northampton MP's view on library closure

Brian Binley MP
Northampton South Constituency
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA 1st February 2011

Dear Mr. Connolly

Thank you for your email. Can I say that I have every sympathy with the concerns you expressed with regard to the closure of the library in St James.
I fully understand the problems faced by the County Council not least because I faced similar problems when I was Finance & Resources portfolio holder in 2006 and indeed I fought against the closure of some libraries at that time.
The truth however is that the council is responsible for budgetary decision making and I have no input into those decisions. I do however have the ability to bring to the Governments attention the general question of funding in Northamptonshire and I have already written to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government expressing my concern at the low formula funding grant which has necessitated deeper cuts than would have other been the case, and I have asked for a meeting with him to discuss this matter further.
We must also recognise that the financial crisis we face was partially the fault of the last Government, not least because the last Prime Minister instructed the FSA to apply a light touch to regulatory control at a time when the banks were running out of control with regard to lending policy.
That self same Government also spent too much of our money in the public sector increasing the public sector payroll by some 20% over 10 years and it all has to be paid for.
The consequences of those policies are now evident and we face a budget deficit of £120 billion this year which means that the Government is borrowing £1 in every £4 it spends and we have to get that deficit down before we can start attacking the public sector debt mountain which will stand at some £1450 billion by 2015.
However that is not the end of the problem because, if you add Governments obligations of public sector pensions, PFI repayments and the underwriting of our banks, that figure increases to £3000 billion or £3 trillion and I am not prepared to stand back and do nothing about the situation thereby leaving the burden of our profligacy to be paid off by our children and grand children. In truth I find that immoral.
Incidentally, I didn’t know what a billion looked like so I asked a Treasury official who told me that a billion seconds equates of little over 32yrs, and that gives you some idea of the mountain we have to climb.
But back to library closures. I repeat it is not my job to take part in an argument over budgetary decisions, but as I said I will fight for a fairer share of the cake for Northamptonshire and I enclose a copy of a letter I sent to Eric Pickles, which you might find interesting in that respect.
I will also urge councillors to delay the closure of the library by a year to give you and your colleagues a little more time to find viable ways of making the library more successful.
I would however point out that some 307 people out of a catchment of 25,000 people used the library last year and therein lies the difficulty. There just isn’t enough footfall.
In conclusion can I say that I recognise that this isn’t the answer that you would want but it I an honest answer, I hope you will appreciate that.

Yours sincerely,

Brian Binley MP
Northampton South Constituency

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St James End before 1965

St James End before 1965

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