Ledbury Portal Community Forum

With roofs blowing off them, local governments axing them and a general confusion of mixed messages over our own town library I'd like pose a couple of points.

The BBC report that each book loaned out costs the tax payer £3. That's an amazing figure. A £3.99 book that is loaned out 20 times will cost us £60. Wow!
I'm guessing most of this cost is librarians' wages.

I have several solutions - alternatives to closing the library:

1. If people are happy to pay for the hire of DVDs and CDs then why not charge for book hire? Afterall inter-library loan books are charged for? Why not also charge for computer/Internet use?

2. Why not also charge for library membership? If you join a club or a gym you get charged as a member.

3. Why not seek sponsorship for libraries from some of the enormously rich corporations that stalk our land - Tesco, BP etc

4. Why not use volunteers to help 'man' the library?

Perhaps all healthy and able retired and unemployed people should be required to set some time aside for volunteering for sectors of our society that have never really been affordable and sustainable.

It appears we are paying the price for our democratic politicians telling us for decades that we can have services without paying for them.

Should the generations who happily voted for this deception now put a bit of unpaid work in to help resolve the national debt while still retain the services we treasure?