You may be interested to know that KCC is currently undertaking a consultation on its mobile library service. The consultation is entitled “Making best use of the Mobile Library Service” and can be downloaded using the following link: http://consultations.kent.gov.uk/consult.ti/mobilelibraries/consultationHome . The deadline for comments to KCC is 5pm on Friday 4 March. KCC advise that no decisions have been taken and that they want to hear what you think of their proposal.
As you will see, the consultation includes information on why KCC is re-designing the mobile library service, the criteria they are proposing when reviewing stopping locations and the impact it would have on the current service. The consultation document proposes to withdraw stops that have only had, on average, 2 or less visitors over the period October 2014-September 2015. The consultation document shows that this would reduce the number of stops from 651 to 283. Page 8 of the consultation document reports that redesigning routes would allow KCC to implement a number of proposed improvements and changes to the stops:
- Each stop would be on a new, fortnightly schedule
- Increasing the minimum stop time from 10 minutes to 30 minutes,
- improving the stop length for more than half of the stops
- Changing the days we operate to Tuesday through to Saturday
- to mitigate the impact of Bank Holiday Mondays on our current
- schedules and to increase opportunity for wider use
- In addition, we expect the redesigned routes will result in better fuel
- efficiency and improve the environmental impact of the Mobile Library
- Service.
- It will also deliver a saving for KCC.
The consultation document predicts that 80% of the current visits and 77% of the current book issues would still be delivered through the proposed mobile network (see page 9 of the consultation document for further details of the impact of the proposed changes). To see what this means for your specific local stop please use the following link: http://consultations.kent.gov.uk/consult.ti/mobilelibraries/consultationHome.