BOLLINGTON residents are being consulted on proposals to increase the town’s part of the council tax by an average £2.93 per month to fund free parking and keep the library’s existing opening hours.
The town has already lost its tip because of cost-cutting measures introduced by Cheshire East.
The cash-strapped borough council also plans to introduce charges on Pool Bank Car Park and could cut library opening hours.
Bollington Town Council hopes to stop this by contributing towards these services itself, but this would see an average monthly increase of £2.93 in its precept – the town council’s part of the council tax.
A spokesperson for the town council said: “Bollington Town Council has begun consulting its residents on proposals to save the town’s library from having its hours reduced by 66 per cent from January next year under Cheshire East Council’s libraries strategy.
“The consultation on the library is combined with a proposal to keep the town’s Pool Bank Car Park free of fees threatened by Cheshire East Council.”
Vice chairman of the Friends of Bollington Library, Sandra Edwards, said: “We have reason to believe that if the town’s library opening is reduced to a puny 11 hours per week as planned by Cheshire East, the service would then be at risk from total closure.
“The authority has made it clear that yet more cuts to its libraries are being planned, almost certainly within the next few months.
“More than half the population of Bollington are registered as library members and a full range of services is available over five days of the week, making the library a central facility for our town’s community.
“If the partnership [for] Cheshire East and the town council to share the cost of keeping the library open for its current hours gains the support of the residents of Bollington, this would be subject to a contract which would go some way to protecting the library from further cuts.”
She added: “The Friends group supports the proposal to keep Pool Bank Car Park free.
“We know the value of a free car park for providing access to services as we have at the library.
"We worry about the impact of charging at Pool Bank on local shops and also on residents, many of whom have no space for parking in the traditional terraced housing in Bollington and who see the problems certain to be caused by displaced parking on our very narrow streets.”
Details of the consultation can be seen on the town council’s website here.
Print copies are also being delivered to all houses in the town and are also available at Bollington Town Hall.
The opinion survey should be returned by November 15 to locations across Bollington, including the library, Tesco, Coop, the leisure centre, town hall, Chadwick’s Newsagents and Grimshaw Lane Corner Store.
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