New Shoebury Library

As a councillor, I always get copied into all the official press releases that the Council issues. As you would expect, press releases are usually bland with the Council press office unwilling to engage as spin doctors for the relative political parties.

The press release issued on the opening of the new Shoeburyness Library today was an exception and I have made my feelings to the Town Clerk and the Corporate Director known.
  

To be clear from the outset, I am delighted that Shoeburyness has got a new library and it is welcomed that the current Administration came to this conclusion following their review of the previous Conservative Administration's proposals.

It is here that the congratulations have to stop. The press release issued late last month implies that under the Conservatives, the new Library would have been staffed by volunteers. This simply wasn't the case.

Under the Conservatives, the new Library would have been run by fully paid staff, under this Administration, the new Shoeburyness Library will only have one fully paid member of staff with the remainder being volunteers. I will leave it for residents and readers of this blog to decide whether the existing arrangements at the new Library under this Administration was better than was proposed by the last Conservative Administration.