Readers' Letters: Why is the council charging to reserve library books?

Readers’ Letters is a free weekly column giving you the chance to have your say on issues affecting the Harrogate district. It is an opinion column and does not reflect the views of the Stray Ferret. Send your views to letters@thestrayferret.co.uk.

There's been a lot in the news lately about the sharp decline in reading. People are not picking up books anymore, and this could have an ominous impact down the line. A well-read society is more compassionate, inquisitive and questioning.

So why does North Yorkshire Council charge a fee of £1.25 just to reserve a book? All this does is deter people from reading even more.

I was in Harrogate library this morning and had to clear my balance of around £10 so I could borrow some more books. I was expecting to pay this, but it didn't make it any less annoying.

The librarian who worked there, who was perfectly nice, said the fees were to "make money" for the library.

Libraries, which are already funded through the council budget, should be more than cash generators to boost a balance sheet alongside car parks. 

I suspect that £10 of mine will go straight up to Northallerton and disappear down Cllr Gareth Dadd's (Tory executive member for finance) black hole that hides somewhere in his office cupboard.

I could pirate the books I wanted online easily enough, or just not read at all, because that is the ultimate impact of these spurious fees.

Maybe the council thinks in Harrogate we can afford it, but I'm a low earner and the charges add up when you read a lot. I work in Otley so I also use the library there. Leeds City Council faces similar financial pressures as North Yorkshire, if not worse, but it's free to reserve a book. They don't even have late fees. 

I asked a friend who works at the central library in Leeds about this, and he told me the council doesn't want to charge because they hope to encourage people to read more, not less. That's how it should be.

Tired lines like those from a cheap paperback that we've heard so many times from North Yorkshire Council about pressures from central government don't wash. It's about what sort of society you want to encourage and what we value.

Northallerton's attitude seems to be that everything is for sale, if we wring a few quid out of a service we will, and sod the consequences. Is that what these people got into politics for?

So Carl Les and your cabinet, how about you make a stand and cancel these penalties for reading and show people that literature should be free and available to all.

Thomas Barrett, Harrogate

Roadworks chaos in Harrogate

Just when you thought 2025 could not be beaten with the sheer volume of roadworks and incompetent management therein, here comes 2026. 

The sheer scale of simultaneous roadworks throughout the year beggars belief and it seems the council's answer is the lane rental scheme will be the panacea. It appears they have simply approved every single request with little thought and hope for the best that the lane rental scheme will somehow reduce the obscene length of some of these works — April to July on Otley Road, Killinghall, for Northern Gas Networks to name just one.

I do not have confidence in the highways department or Cllr Malcolm Taylor, the executive member for highways, that this scheme will be managed effectively.

Several times highways have sent ‘inspectors’ to sites at my request and they do nothing. An example of this was Oaker Bank where Yorkshire Water had excavated a gulley off the road and dumped all the soil onto the road rather than the sidings. Therefore temporary lights were placed on the road because a lane was now blocked. The leak was resolved at the site in the first day and the site was abandoned for a week. Not only did highways not demand Yorkshire Water remove the dirt and place it on the sidings to clear the road, they actually extended the permit to allow the site to be abandoned for longer.

If Cllr Taylor would like to step aside, I am sure I can do his job far more effectively.

Neil Crabtree, Harrogate

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