Uncertain future for Craven Arms library

Craven Arms Library was among the first in the county to be transferred from Shropshire Council to be run by a community group, charity the South Shropshire Furniture Scheme.

But the county authority has still contributed some funding to keep the service going in recent years. That is due to stop in 2018 but both the Furniture Scheme and Craven Arms Town Council have said the are unlikely to be able to make up the balance.

The latter has said it could be replaced by a mobile van service.

The Furniture Scheme took over the running of Craven Arms Library in 2014. Previously run by Shropshire Council out of the Shropshire Hills Discovery Centre, it moved location down the road to the Craven Arms Community Centre, known as CasCA, which is also run by the charity group.

Jean Jarvis, director of the Furniture Scheme, said the group had a "service level" agreement with Shropshire Council, in which the group delivers the service but the council continues providing funding towards it. That agreement was for three years, with the amount of public funding decreasing each year.

She said Shropshire Council had now agreed to one more year of funding, though at a lower level, with the Furniture Scheme subsidising the service, to take the library up until April 2018 – but after that was an unknown.

She said: "We have agreed to subsidise for one more year. Towards the end of 2017 we will have to be looking at it to decide what we do with it.

"Obviously it is not ideal for a charity to be subsidising local authority services. Tough decisions have to be made by everybody."

In the light of the library's uncertain future, the matter was discussed by Craven Arms Town Council to see if members were willing to step in and provide extra money from the town coffers.

But they decided against the move, town clerk Eric Williams said. He said the town council did provide some funding for CasCA, but not the library service, and despite the loss of Shropshire Council money members were not seeking to change that.

"We did have a town council meeting about it and the council agreed they will not look to contribute towards the library at its current location in the community centre.

"I think they felt the usage was declining and the service could be provided by a mobile library service," he said.

He said the library was safe in its currently location for the next financial year, however.