Essential

Published: 21 April, 2011

• I WAS pleased to see your picture of the Friends of West Hampstead Library, (April 7), but no photograph can show the large number of people who visited to show support over that particular day or who continue to use the facility day-to-day.

An important issue that came out of the event was the fact that the council’s current financial difficulty is temporary. 

In a couple of years, we will all be back to normal, assuming the banks do not do a repeat performance. 

If this does not happen (and this is a big if) we will want our libraries back again.

But the buildings will be lost to nail-bars or takeaway food outlets. There will be no opportunity to get back premises as suitable as what we have now. 

For this reason, among all the others, the council must accept that the facility is an essential part of the community and only scrap what can be replaced in due course.

PETER RUTHERFORD
Member of the Friends of West Hampstead Library