New library policy 'Orwellian', says councillor

Telling library staff they should no longer promote events such as Pride and Black History Month was "Orwellian", a councillor said.

Ross Playle, who represents Witham Town for the Conservatives on Essex County Council, said he was "perplexed" by the decision.

Reform UK, which runs the authority, has instructed workers to not highlight events unrelated to day-to-day activities, but will not be removing books from shelves.

Chris Hossack, Reform cabinet member for residents and community services, said he wanted Essex's 74 libraries to be "neutral spaces" for all.

Librarians were informed they should no longer promote events on social media channels or by creating bespoke book displays for them, during a verbal briefing.

"I'm just a bit perplexed of where we are and how they're actually choosing to wield that power," Playle said of Reform, speaking to BBC Essex presenter Ben Fryer.

He said giving some themed books more prominence during certain months, such as Pride, would make their audience feel more visible, and criticised the council for preventing this.

"I don't think this is helping anyone when we're restricting what people can see or read in their libraries, and what is deemed suitable by the administration," Playle added.

"That's incredibly dangerous and I would say it's also quite Orwellian."

Playle asked: "What are they trying to achieve here? Saying it's OK to be gay but just don't advertise it?"

The council has insisted that Pride has not been specifically targeted.

Other groups that meet across Essex's libraries include those for widows, dementia support, toddler story time and help with IT.

Hossack said "true equality" could only be achieved by removing promotion for all topics.

"There's a day or a month or whatever it might be for a whole range of things. Not everybody's encompassed in that," he said.

"[When] you put a month or a day on for one characteristic then, by default, you're excluding somebody else.

"There's plenty of opportunity for campaigns and organisations that want to promote [International] Women's Day [and] Black History to do that, and what I'm saying is, we're not going to do that in our libraries."

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