A new public library appeared for the afternoon on the lawns of Manchester’s Piccadilly Gardens.
Manchester Mule, 31st March 2013
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Children heard a spirited reading of The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, Where the Wild Things Are and the Gruffalo, complete with a Gruffalo impersonation, in a “pop up” library built to protest library closures. The flatpack facility was the brainchild of campaigners from neighbourhoods across Manchester including Northenden, Levenshulme, Burnage and Fallowfield fighting to keep their libraries open.
Subject to consultation, up to six libraries across the city could go in the latest round of £80m cuts implemented by Manchester City Council after the Coalition government slashed its funding. A replacement library will be built in Levenshulme – but not for two years.
Levenshulme activist Valerie O’Riorden told Mule that campaigners had not heard confirmation whether the new library would be a like-for-like replacement. “And with the other libraries who aren’t getting a replacement facility in Burnage or Fallowfield or Northenden” she said, “they’ve heard nothing. As far as anyone’s concerned the libraries are shutting and they will be replaced with an outreach service and maybe a book collection point in a shop or something.”