IT was revealed recently that Darlington Borough Council is spending £33,000-a-month on legal fees making its case for closing Crown Street library.
What an absolute waste of public money which could be used to keep the library and its wonderful services fully functioning at Crown Street.
What we are seeing is a crazy situation of a council spending its taxpayers’ money fighting a court case against the taxpayers themselves.
The council has reached this situation by a mixture of stubbornness, its failure to listen and its arrogance. It has a “we know best attitude” only now it does not know how it can get out of its predicament.
The council has been told time and time again that the people of Darlington want the library and its services to remain at Crown Street because it was a gift from the Pease family to the people of Darlington. Squeezing the library and downsizing it into a smaller space in the Dolphin Centre and scattering its other services over various buildings will not work – it will be inefficient and will not make the anticipated savings.
Can I offer the council a simple solution: abandon your court case, apologise to the staff and people of Darlington for the hurt you have caused and start talking to the Friends of the Library about how the library and its services can be kept at Crown Street.
Alan Macnab, Darlington
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