Save Sea Mills Library Leaflet

Here’s our leaflet as a pdf, which will be coming through your letterbox over the next few days (if you haven’t had it already). The second page tells you which bits of the consultation we are arguing against. We are still looking for deliverers for Stoke Bishop – so if you can help, please get in touch. Click here to see it

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A few clarifications

When Friends of Sea Mills Library were at the library on Saturday, there were a few questions that popped up, so we thought we could clarify them here.

If you completed the consultation before March, you took part in stage 1. The council have now moved on to stage 2, which has different questions. And so you need to complete another survey. This has not been entirely obvious and it was mentioned that several people thought they didn’t need to complete the consultation as they did it a few months ago.

Every member of your household can complete their own separate consultations. There is no upper or lower age limit, or maximum number per household. The more people that complete it, the better.

If you use multiple libraries, then:

  • If you complete your consultation online, you can pick as many libraries as you use, and it will ask you for your thoughts on each of them.
  • If you complete it on paper, you can only mention a maximum of 2 libraries on the form. If you use more than that and wish to comment on them all, you can complete as many paper form versions as you require.
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Costings for most Bristol libraries

Here’s another new document we’ve found.

BristolLibraries estimated costings March 2015

This document seems to show the anticipated costs of most of Bristol’s libraries going forward (including those in groups 1 and 2). It confuses me slightly. Stockwood (a larger library than Sea Mills) apparently had a new boiler and new security alarm installed – both within the last 4 years. The cost of the new boiler was £10-12k (why don’t they know a specific price, 4 years after the work took place?) and the cost of the new security system was £2.2k. So that’s £14.2k in total if we assume the highest price for the estimate. Those two things are two thirds of the works that Sea Mills Library apparently requires in the next 5 years (along with “Decorating to the rear internal staff areas”). Sea Mills estimate cost for this is £30k. Does that mean they’re planning to spend £15.8k on decorating the staff area?

Also, interesting to note that Avonmouth Library (which is not one of the ones on the closure list), does not have an accessible toilet.

“Accessible toilets are not available in the library. The toilets in the community centre can be used when that part of the building is open”

However, visitors can use the one in the community centre, if the community centre part of the building is open. The document also states:

“Proposed changes would provide library users with access to the building’s accessible toilet (currently available only when the community centre is open)”

Sea Mills Library has a community centre right behind it, which also has its own accessible toilet, which would also only be usable if the community centre is open. Why couldn’t this option be explored in Sea Mills?

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Costings for group3 libraries

Bristol City Council have released potential costs for libraries in group 3 (or “those outside of groups 1 and 2” as they seem determined to call them), and it makes for interesting reading.

BristolLibraries group3 costings March 2015

For example, one of the costs to Eastville Library is for changing from single to double glazing. While this is obviously important enough to be included in the future costings, when it comes to Sea Mills, there is no mention in the “works undertaken in recent years” that it has had this costly upgrade already.

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The hunt is on!

Just a quick reminder that the Sea Mills Scarecrow Trail is now live. There are scarecrows all over the place, so get searching and see how many you can find.

You can find one (spoiler alert!) at Sea Mills Library, which is also one of the places where you can get a map to help you track down the rest of them.

For more information, see: http://www.seamillsscarecrows.co.uk

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