YOUR HANDY GUIDE TO TODAY's "RE-OPENING" OF CARNEGIE LIBRARY, HERNE HILL
STORY SO FAR
Carnegie Library - the busiest children's library in Lambeth, with usage by all age groups increasing annually in double figures - was closed on 1 April 2016.
Endless protests ignored.
The idea - to shrink the library to a fraction of its size, remove all staff and instal a fee-charging gym in the building (which is surrounded by gyms).
TODAY
The library has been closed until today - 15 February 2018. Almost 2 years.
A "neighbourhood library" has now opened with - big concession - library staff to help users for just 2 hours a day.
The gym is nowhere near ready. Noisy building work will continue until autumn 2018.
The garden has been ruined to take in ventilation plant and a garish new entrance for the gym.
IN TIME FOR COUNCIL ELECTIONS, THE FAKE NEW LIBRARY OPENED TODAY
PRESENT: over 100 protesters, including many of those who occupied the building in April 2016 in a last-ditch attempt to divert Lambeth council from its hated plan to spend millions installing an unwanted fee-charging gym.
ABSENT:
- council leader Lib Peck;
- any of the 3 local councillors - who all voted for the plan despite hundreds of objections;
- any of the secretive three-member "trust" due to be handed the building for purposes never shared with local people.
OBSERVED: by UNISON reps & bemused local people -
- sole fire door jammed shut (if open it would lead through a building site)
- no disabled access (wheelchairs, prams etc must mount flight of steps
- entrance shared with building workers carrying equipment & materials
- no heating
- sole public toilet overlooked by nearby houses, and drains waste into the kitchen sink
- building noise
- uncomfortable levels of dust.
KNOWN:
The library has been set up in the beautiful main library room - but within weeks it will all be crammed into the much smaller front room (currently under extensive repairs because council neglect during closure allowed water to flooding, again and again).
UNKNOWN:
Final cost.
Lambeth council claims the gym scheme is needed to cope with government cuts. Cost so far, over the near 2 years the Carnegie has been closed:
- £3m to dig out basement to instal the unwanted gym.
- £200,000 on security guards (here & at nearby closed Minet library)
- All the costs the closed libraries still had to pay for rates, utilities, insurance etc.
- £200,000 cost of using Lambeth funds to compensate for use of the gym rent-free for 5 years by Greenwich Leisure Ltd (in a building the council owns!). In a deal that remains secret.
- £120,000 loss of income from businesses renting space in the Carnegie library - thrown out with no notice
- Cost of relocating the extensive library back-up services (stock dept & storage, home delivery service etc) formerly operating rent-free in Carnegie building
- ?£100,000 cost of setting up and supporting project group that has morphed into the council-friendly "Carnegie Community Trust" - three self-appointed trustees, no voting members, no involvement with the community, which is due to be given the building as an asset transfer.
- cost of consultants to analyse - and reject - rival bid from Carnegie Library Association, which has nine elected trustees, 300+ voting members including long-established Friends of Carnegie Library, local amenity societies & all the community groups that used the library... and has held 3 public meetings that approved its aim to restore a full library service.
