Here’s an article about what is happening in another area of the country. It is something that we at the Friends would not like to think would happen in our Cambridge libraries, particularly when we see what is happening at Milton Road Library. So read on to discover what another council has come up with for their libraries…
By Jason Cobb – June 8, 2018
Lambeth Council is proposing to spend an extra £1,073,000 on the Carnegie book-ish gym at Herne Hill. This is in addition to the £1,255,130 that has been spent on digging out a basement in the Grade II listed building for a ‘healthy living centre.’
A budget total of £2.8M has now been put aside for the project. Last year the Council reduced the budget for libraries by £800,000. It claimed that central government cuts meant that it couldn’t afford to invest in the existing libraries.
This is for phase 2 of the Carnegie book-ish gym project. Three bids were received as part of the procurement process. The Council has decided to dish out the extra £1,073,000 to a local joinery company. The report claims that the money will come from: “Capital funding and the joint Greenwich Leisure Ltd (GLL) profit share development pot.” That’s assuming that GLL actually makes any money out of the book-ish gym. No business plan has been made public since the Council gifted the Carnegie to its GLL buddies.
There is also an option for a roof terrace to be built on top of the Carnegie. This will come at a further cost of £100,000. The Council expects the Carnegie Community Trust (CCT) to pay for this.
The Carnegie was closed by Lambeth Council on 31 March 2016. It miraculously re-opened as a ‘neighbourhood library’ just weeks ahead of the 2018 local elections.
No librarians work full time on the site. The building doesn’t comply with fire safety regulations; it has no disabled access and the heating and toilet facilities are inadequate.
Lambeth Council is now claiming that the Carnegie will:
“Reopen on completion of the works as a healthy living centre with a self-service neighbourhood library.”
This is expected to be in November 2018.
The report prepared for Cllr Winifred also claims:
“The principle of creating a Healthy Living Centre and Neighbourhood Library at Carnegie was set out in the Culture 2020 Report approved by Cabinet on 12 October 2015.”
The principle of creating a Healthy Living Centre and Neighbourhood Library is something that residents have not been consulted upon. This is an option that was not presented as part of Cllr jane Edbrooke’s original Culture 2020 consultation.
There is a suspicion that the deal with GLL was possibly a done deal ahead of the consultation. To date there has been no explanation from Lambeth Council as to how GLL became a book-ish gyms partner.
The £1,255,130 work to excavate the Carnegie basement is now complete. The original budget for this was £600,000.
Green Cllr Scott Ainslie ‘called in’ the decision for further examination at the Scrutiny Committee. His request was blocked by the Progress controlled panel.
The Carnegie report concludes:
“The aspiration of the Council is that the Library will be run by the community for the community, once again mitigating the temporary equalities impact the closure would have had on those that regularly frequented the building in the past.”
Which begs the question: why did they close the Carnegie in the first place?
Two years later and a current cost of £2.8M seems a high price to pay for a ‘neighbourhood library’ with a gym in the basement that no one wanted in the first place.
Friends of Cambridge Central Library 