Derbyshire Labour have recently written to residents in Glossop and said they cannot deliver a library in the towns Victoria Hall, something they promised they would do during their 2013 County Election campaign. The previous Conservative administration was committed to building a £2million library on an alternative site with a children's library and play area because the costs and liabilities were too high to continue to use Victoria Hall, promising a library fit for the 21st century. 

Derbyshire Labour halted those plans, promising residents that the library would remain in Victoria Hall, but have now admitted "Victoria Hall isn't a viable place to run a library fit for the 21st century."  The complexities and the issues that faced Victoria Hall in 2013 have not changed, yet Labour cannot now afford the £3million plus costs to refurbish and maintain the old library, breaking an explicit campaign promise they have probably always know was not deliverable.

Cllr Barry Lewis, Leader of the Conservative Opposition said,

"Not too many years ago, a big promise was made to the people of Glossop, just before a County Council election in fact.  Cllr Western and Cllr Bisknell, who was then the Leader of High Peak Borough Council and a County Council Candidate, promised, along with the two local Labour candidates Damien Greenhalgh and Ellie Wilcox, that the library would be delivered in Victoria Hall, not on a new site because they said that option wasn’t wanted or acceptable."

"They turned this into the big, local political hot potato for the area.  This despite clear evidence even then that this was not affordable and not deliverable.  Now the elections are well behind them and with crocodile tears in their eyes they’ve let down the people of Glossop, after stringing them along for years, blaming everyone but themselves.  Time and money has been wasted on a failed promise. One phrase springs to mind: morally contemptible."

"Once again, they've proved that breaking promises is all too easy when you can pretend to shed tears whilst claiming the choices you make are someone else's fault."