DOES Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council care about Loftus?

Plans are afoot to close down the library and move it to the totally unsuitable co-op building in Loftus.

This means reduced services, no library staff, fewer books and more self-service machines! It would also mean another empty building in Loftus – an absolute disgrace.

The council has taken the guts out of Loftus, now it wants to take its heart.

The library as it stands hosts a variety of meetings. The staff provide a service to members of the public.

We, the ratepayers, want to see our library kept as a hub for the community, a place where schools can bring their children, old people can borrow a book, sit and have a chat and read newspapers.

The library in Loftus provides a Citizens Advice Bureau, welfare and benefit advice (that will stop), resulting in people who can ill afford it to travel more – there is no library, (or Post Office) between here and Whitby.

The library is a right not a privilege.

I was at the meeting in the library when the plans were raised by the council. Next to me was a lad in his late teens or early 20s. He said to me that he uses the library every day to look for a job and to use the internet, and that he doesn’t have a computer or the internet at home – not everyone can afford it.

He won’t be the only one.

The council cannot compare libraries in other parts of the borough as we are unique in terms of demographics. Also, it is no good comparing footfall in libraries as footfall depends on how many people live in the area, and it is no use comparing using of a library card, as some people just go in to browse books or newspapers etc.

The people of Loftus have had enough. We are sick and tired of our services being taken away from us. Why has Redcar got four libraries?

Everything in the Redcar and Cleveland district seems to end in Skelton.

I urge everyone to go into the library and get a form to fill in to voice your objections ASAP.

Carol Clifford, Loftus, Saltburn