The head of Arbroath’s oldest secular organisation has added his voice to the ”hands off” cry over the town library.
As the struggle to keep the library within the burgh’s common good rages on, Dean of the Guildry Ian Lamb said transfer of the Hill Terrace facility to Angus Council’s general fund could be the ”thin end of the wedge” for other towns in the district.
Mr Lamb said the local authority audit which had thrown up the prospect of assets such as the library being transferred would be ”immoral quarrying” of Angus common good funds.
The guildry’s roots stretch back to 1725 and its remit includes promoting civic pride in the town. With that in mind, Mr Lamb said the library proposal was a clear threat to an important part of the town’s heritage.
Mr Lamb said: ”Just because Angus is now governed by a single unitary council doesn’t mean to say the district’s individual towns are no longer entitled to their own heritage.
”The council have started this process of potentially raiding the common good funds alphabetically, so this is truly a test case for Angus and possibly the rest of Scotland. I totally back independent councillor Bob Spink’s pledge to fight tooth and nail to prevent this immoral quarrying of common good funds.
”It’s painfully obvious that independent councillors like Mr Spink stand to represent the genuine interests of the electorate and are prepared to take up the cudgels on behalf of their constituents.
”Anyone with Arbroath’s interests at heart is right in thinking that the removal of the library from the common good fund could be the thin end of the wedge. Quite apart from that, the loss of revenue to the fund from the council’s rent for the building would outstrip other costs doing the common good fund no favours on an ongoing basis.”
Mr Lamb continued: ”Arbroath’s subscription library dates back to the 1790s and was located in our original guildry building on the High Street before moving to the Public Hall, also in the High Street in 1868. The library eventually became the public library in 1875.
”The town council adopted the Public Libraries Act in 1896. It was thanks to generous gifts from leading citizens of the day, with only the good of the Arbroath community in mind, that the library was able to open in the former Academy building two years later.”
He added, ”Former provost David Corsar of The Elms was the principal benefactor. He bought the old academy, renovated it and extended the building to provide lending library accommodation, a reference library room, a reading room and a picture gallery.
”There’s no doubt at all that David Corsar made his gift to the people of Arbroath. A library already existed in the town and this was the donation of a building to house it.
”I understand that, to this day, his family have no wish to see the building removed from the common good fund.
”The whole project seems to me to be based on the principle of the council saving £24,700 a year by removing from the town ownership of a building that belongs to Arbroath so they no longer have to pay rent on it.
”The loser at the end of the day would be Arbroath as part of its heritage would be summarily removed.”