Hullbridge Library: Questions And Answers

Chris Black sent the following email yesterday to County Councillors Jeremy Lucas (the cabinet member for Libraries), Mike Mackrory (Lib Dem), and Bonnie Hart and Stephen Castle (the local members):

Good Morning
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– I am sending this to appropriate County Members, and would be grateful if you could read this before tomorrow’s cabinet meeting (Feb 8th) . I am copying it to appropriate district and parish councillors, officers, and our constituency MP.
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The County Cabinet is meeting tomorrow to discuss cuts in library hours – item 004 on the link below :
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http://cmis.essexcc.gov.uk/essexcmis5/Meetings/tabid/73/ctl/ViewMeetingPublic/mid/410/Meeting/168/Committee/36/Default.aspx
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I wish to query the rationale behind cutting the proposed opening hours for Hullbridge Library down to a mere 16 per week.
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I think I broadly understand the criteria being used – libraries with a catchment area of below 7,000 will have their hours reduced to 16 per week. In the report it states that:
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“Catchment population is determined by plotting postcodes of customers using a specific library and identifying
the population numbers of those areas using census ward population data”
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However , the latest population figure I have seen for Hullbridge is 7,300 persons. The report gives a catchment population of only 5,947, presumably some Hullbridge residents use Rayleigh library. Even so I find the proposal a little odd as it gives Hullbridge library a catchment area actually smaller than Hullbridge…..

In fact a fair number of residents in North Rayleigh and Rawreth use Hullbridge Library out of choice. To quote one resident who emailed me this morning:
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” I live in Rayleigh and use Hullbridge Library. Driving to Hullbridge is quicker than getting to Rayleigh town centre, and there’s free parking. There’s slightly less choice of books (although you can reserve books if required), but I found the childrens books were generally in better condition than those found in Rayleigh library.
They changed the opening hours last year so that Saturday opening was more restricted, which was a bit of a pain. Reducing the hours further should not be considered.”
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It’s clear that Hullbridge library is an asset valued outside Hullbridge
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My final point is that I don’t know if you are using 2001 ward census data ; the population of Downhall and Rawreth (the Rayleigh ward closest to Hullbridge) has grown since then, and I would hope that the calculations used take this into account.
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(Please note that Rayleigh’s figure is comfortably above the criteria for its proposed opening hours; any adjustment to Hullbridge’s figure shouldn’t have an impact on Rayleigh)
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I would be grateful for an acknowledgement from the county members I have sent this to – and I hope that the proposal for Hullbridge can be amended.
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Regards
Chris Black
Downhall and Rawreth Ward
Rochford District Council

To give County Councillor Lucas credit, he acknowledged the email very quickly (soon followed by Mike Mackrory) and then sent the following detailed answer later in the afternoon, which we show with his agreement:

Dear Mr. Black,
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I have now been able to enquire about this with the senior Officer who undertook the work to produce the formula for Library Opening hours.
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The response is as follows:-
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When we were investigating how we could decide on the revised opening hours we did consider using population rather than catchment population ? however there were issues with this approach.
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As Cllr Black himself says, people use libraries out of choice which are not necessarily in the place where they live ? if we simply use population we do not reflect this.
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In addition we discovered that it is not easy to get an agreed definition for population ? for example, the population of Saffron Walden according to the Office for National Statistics is 15, 095; this rises to 19,120 if we include wards as follows: Plantation 4,514, Audley 4,575, Castle 4,925, Shire 5,106; however the catchment population ( i.e. the number of people who regard Saffron Walden as their library ) is 39,656.
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In another example, if ?Manningtree ward? is used as the search term when using the data sets provided by the ONS, the result is a figure for Lawford and Manningtree ward of 5,376; if the library postcode ?CO11 1AD? is used as the search term, a figure of 4,365 for Manningtree, Mistley, Little Bentley and Tendring ward is returned; by using ?Manningtree? in a ?Parish? search we get a figure of 900. I think that this highlights the difficulty of producing a definitive population figure.
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Therefore we have taken the catchment population for each library, in order to decide on the number of hours. To calculate catchment population. the postcodes of all active members (customers) are plotted by home library on a map of Essex. All Essex wards with their populations are added to the map. The population of each ward is apportioned (shared) equally to all the customers/postcodes in that ward. The population attached to each customer/postcode is then totalled by home library to give an ?in Essex? catchment population. Any library that has customers/postcodes outside Essex is given a value per customer/postcode which is the average population that that library gets for each customer/postcode in Essex. The total of these values gives an ?outside Essex? catchment population per library. The total of the ?in Essex? and ?outside Essex? values for each library gives the catchment population. Where a ward has customers from more than 1 library, the population of the ward is shared in the same proportions ? e.g. if 40 postcodes are recorded against one ward with 30 belonging to Braintree and 10 to Chelmsford, the population would be apportioned with 75% to Braintree and 25% to Chelmsford. The calculations take into account not only the current use of each library but also potential use, where customers choose to use a library and we also take account of customers who live outside Essex County Council.

The catchment population figures are based on the Office for National Statistics Mid-2007 Population Estimates.

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I hope that this explains what is inevitably a very complex situation. Our intention is that the result will be much fairer to Library users across the county.
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As is, I hope, made clear in the Cabinet paper for tomorrow, the quickest way in which additional hours of opening can be achieved at any branch Library is by some form of partnership. Examples which already exist include those with a District Council, a Parish Council, the Police and the NHS. Further possibilities are already in train or being explored with a Post Office, a Tourist office and other organisations such as the CAB or JobCentre Plus.
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If you or your colleagues are able to introduce such potential partnerships our team will be delighted to discuss them.
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Kind regards,

Any thoughts from anyone?