IS anyone else concerned about the size of the proposed new ‘library’? (86-bedroom Travelodge included in Maltings plans, Salisbury Journal, January 10)

Looking at the plans submitted by T H Real Estate it would appear that our very popular and well-used community library would become a much-reduced facility more suited to smaller towns like Warminster and Bradford-on-Avon.

According to the plans the new ‘library’ would be confined to the current ground floor space formerly occupied by the British Heart Foundation shop. Where would all the groups that currently use the library go? I run a much-loved reading group on Thursday mornings but that is far from being the only one. And what about the heavily used reference library with all the public computers that are very well used? What about all the exhibition space? What would happen to the Edwin Young Galleries? The new building looks like, well, what you would expect a budget hotel to look like. I could cope with that if, and only if, the development included a proper library commensurate with a place like Salisbury and what it already has. On the face of it this is most definitely not what is planned. I cannot see how our library could fit into this drastically reduced space, let alone be an improvement. To use a common phrase, it would be like trying to fit a quart into a pint pot.

Another important point is that Wiltshire Council owns the current library building, but would it own the new ‘library’? If not, would it be in the hands of T H Real Estate – which proudly describes itself as ‘one of the largest real estate investment managers in the world’? Do we really want our precious library in the hands of such an organisation? Would the new diminished ‘library’ suddenly find itself without a home at some point in the future – much like our Post Office and Police Station?

This new development is billed as being part of the new Cultural Quarter but if this plan is anything to go by it looks more like a Cultural Slaughter.

Dick Bellringer

Salisbury