PEMBROKESHIRE County Council is asking for £10,000 a year from Pembroke Dock Town Council to keep the town’s library open for an extra day a week for the next three years.
The town council also has an alternative offer of paying £11,000 for just one year.
The County Council’s Library services department has been looking at reducing the number of days Pembroke Dock Library is open from four and half days a week to three and a half days.
If the council wants to keep it open for four and a half days they would need to come up with that money.
However, at the Pembroke Dock Town Council meeting in February, the town clerk said that communication had been poor as they had already set the budget for the following financial year.
Cllr O’Connor said it was not the Town Council’s role to fund it and that Pembrokeshire County Council were in a ‘state’ with their finances.
He added that cuts were going to be devastating for the county.
Cllr Manning said other town councils had agreed to contribute to the budget with the possibility of a five year agreement.
He said this would be difficult as the town council operates on a 4-year term and that once it was set up there was a possibility of charges going up further.
Cllr Tony Wilcox said he was ‘extremely reluctant’ to support as they were already carrying out work that the County Council should be doing
The matter is due to be discussed further at the Town Council meeting on Thursday, March 2.
Since the meeting in February the town clerk has met with Mike Cavanagh Head of cultural and leisure services.
He said that around 10-11K per week would be required to keep the library open for one extra day a week and that the actual cost over the year would be £14,625.
The Town Council was given an offer of funding an extra day for one year for £11,000 or £10,000 per year for three years.
The Town clerk reiterated to him that it was late in the budget setting process as the town council has to agree on their budget by January.
She added that to ask town and community councils to support departments in this way was ‘very unfair’ and puts them in a very difficult position.
This info was fed back to the Council’s chief executive to give a better understanding of town and community councils.
