Alliance oppose Whitewell Library closure

1.49.00am GMT Sat 15th Mar 2008

The Chair of the North Belfast Alliance Party, Gerry Lynch, has hit out at Belfast Education and Library Board plans to close Whitewell Library.

Gerry Lynch said:

"Whitewell Library is based in a classroom at Ballygolan Primary School and, although small, is ideally located for people living in the Whitewell, Serpentine and Bellevue areas.

"The Board's own figures show that two-thirds of the current users of the library are elderly people, pre-teenaged children or disabled people. For them, the BELB's proposed alternative at the new Grove Wellbeing Centre is no option at all. While the Wellbeing Centre is a great project, it is more than four kilometres from Whitewell Library and many parents would be cautious about allowing even teenagers to make that journey unaccompanied in case of trouble.

"The Board reports that the number of books being borrowed at the Whitewell Library has halved in three years - but has not given any impression of trying to examine why this is. Surely with such a deep decline in borrowers over such a short space of time, there must be a way of revitalising the library.

"I will be opposing this closure vigorously and intend to circulate a petition to let local people have their say on their library."

ENDS