An interview with Shockat Adam MP concerning LCC consultation about libraries and community centres
This podcast is an interview between Shockat Adam MP for Leicester South and Harkesh Farma, reporting for the Evington Echo. It was recorded on Wednesday 30th April, the evening local people met outside Evington Library to express their views about Leicester City Council’s consultation about changes to most libraries and community centres in Leicester.
https://shockatadam.org/2025-04-08-stop-the-council-cuts/
Transcription of podcast
An interview with Shockat Adam MP for Leicester South talking to a reporter for the Evington Echo called Harkesh Farma
Harkesh Hello there. This is Harkesh from the Evington Echo, and I’m in Evington Village, next to Evington library, where there is a protest against the possible proposed closure of the library in Evington, as in other libraries as well. There is a consultation going on, and no decision has been made, but the people of Evington are very concerned that this must might be one of the cuts to Neighbourhood Services.
I’m very pleased to be joined by Member of Parliament for Leicester South and a significant section of the village falls within his constituency of Leicester South. So thank you very much Shockat Adam, Member of Parliament, for joining us and for supporting this campaign.
Why are you here?
Shockat First of all, thank you very much for this opportunity. This is my third visit to the library today. The first one was in St Matthews. Then I went to the Knighton library, and now here at Evington Library . All three of them are more than just a library for books. It is a community hub. It’s a community centre, which is disappearing from our landscapes .People from a young age, infants, teenagers, parents, adults and elderly come. People come together from different socio-economic backgrounds, from different ethnicities, and congregate in one place as part of a community.
Books are vital. Books are important. But these libraries are now in this landscape, as I’ve said, where there’s nowhere for people to go, they can come together and be part of a community that’s cohesive. When we take these facilities away, we may feel that we’re doing some short term savings, but I can guarantee you, it’s going to cost us a lot more in the long term, not just monetary wise, but people’s mental health, people’s loneliness, people’s ability to communicate with people from different backgrounds. They are vital sources.
There are vital areas in our society which we must preserve at all costs. As you say, library services go much beyond books. There is also free internet access as well, which are very important, especially to perhaps quite a lot of elderly people that may not have internet at home or may need some help in using the internet, and a lot of official forms are now only available on the internet, and they need to be filled in online. So, losing this service goes beyond the loss of a library of books. It’s also a warm hub where elderly people can come for company and for some warmth and during the harshest cold winter months as well.
Before I became a politician, I was an optician, and when some elderly people used to come to have their eyes tested, in reality, the eye test was 10 to 15 minutes, the half an hour afterwards was somebody to talk to. Loneliness is a killer, and we may be technologically adequately adapted, but there are so many elderly people that feel so alienated because this computer world is so distant from what they grew up in,. A library provides them some connectivity to the modern world. They are already lonely, and you take this resource away from them, it’s going to make them lonelier. And on the other side of the scale, it’s young men in particular, but even young girls. We have just woken up to such horrendous news a few days ago – an elderly gentleman was killed by youth so young that we can’t even name them, and you know, I’m saying that there’s nothing for lots of young people to do so as well as supporting elderly people, libraries help the young. So, you ask me, why is it important to me? So, these are all the political, economic and social reasons for me.
My three children went to this library, and it was such a vital part of their development, with their schooling here, with their teaching and the nurse and the storytelling, and they were part of a community, and they actually were so sad when the day came when they were too old to come to that sort of club. So, for me, it’s personal, but everything leads to the fact that we must maintain the library and keep them open for books and much more.
Harkesh. There’s a currently, a consultation that the city council is running. Can you encourage our readers to fill in an online survey and to send their responses to the city council to send a very clear message? Would you give our readers a message?
Shockat. The message I will give to your readers is this, sign the petition online, on Evington echo, you can come onto my website. We’ve got an online petition to save the libraries, and we will also be holding a demonstration outside the city hall as well to look out for the news for that, and hopefully we’ll give it to Evington Echo. We need to make our presence felt that we are extremely unhappy at this consultation, even in considering and shutting down our libraries.
Harkesh Shockat Adam. MP or Leicester South I thank you very much. Thank you for your time.
