A new councillor has hit out at the summer closure of Bradford's smaller libraries.

Several of the district's branch libraries usually shut for a week or a fortnight in July or August.

But Councillor Clive Richardson (Con, Thornton) is campaigning to reverse the trend by keeping them open throughout the year.

He says it is important for libraries to be accessible to children in their summer break from school.

Coun Richardson, who ousted Labour councillor Andy Pitts in a surprise result in last month's Council elections, said he would be writing to Councillor Barry Thorne (Lab, Keighley West), chairman of the Council's leisure services committee, and Council leader Councillor Ian Greenwood (Lab, Little Horton) asking for money to be found to keep all libraries open throughout the summer.

"If a library is there to promote book use it doesn't make sense to close them right in the middle of the summer holidays when you want to get kids in there reading," he said.

Coun Richardson, who has just been appointed as the Conservatives' spokesman on the Council's arts, libraries and museums sub-committee, said it was particularly ironic bearing in mind the Council's support for the Year of Literacy.

But Bradford Council today defended its policy of allowing small libraries to close in the school holiday.

"For the past ten years a number of small branch libraries have closed for one or two weeks in the summer to allow staff to take holidays," said a spokesman.

"The summer is traditionally a quiet time for libraries and borrowers are allowed to take out extra books to cover the holiday break. We ensure notice giving details are put up in the libraries concerned well in advance to give borrowers plenty of warning."

She added the district's whole library service was due for review and Coun Richardson's views would be take into account.

Coun Richardson, a former West Yorkshire County Councillor who worked for Bradford Libraries until retiring, said libraries were very much a "Cinderella'' service.

"There's just not enough money put into libraries," he said.

"Whenever you do get anything to do with libraries, you've got headlines about bookworms which isn't very helpful to their image either.

"One of the things I will be trying to do is to get libraries raised to a much higher profile."

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