WALTHAM FOREST: Libraries set to close (From East London and West Essex Guardian Series)
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WALTHAM FOREST: Libraries set to close
12:06pm Tuesday 4th October 2011 in Waltham Forest News By Daniel Binns
PLANS to close libraries in Chingford and Leytonstone look set to be approved next week - despite opposition from more than 7,000 residents.
The council's cabinet meet on Tuesday (October 11) to decide and officers have recommended they vote yes.
If they do Leytonstone's Harrow Green branch in Cathall Road and the South Chingford library in Hall Lane will both be closed down in late November, unless the full council grants a reprieve the week after next.
However officers have also recommended that the cabinet support proposals to convert the former Waltham Forest Direct shop in Chingford Mount Road into a volunteer-run library.
But this is only on the condition that it does not cost any money to the taxpayer.
The council leadership says its shake-up of libraries, which also includes changing the opening hours of remaining branches, will improve the service and save the cash-strapped authority £1million over the next two years.
But a cross-party committee of councillors tasked with scrutinising the reorganisation concluded that the proposals were based on flawed data and recommended a rethink.
And a total of more than 6,000 people in Leytonstone and nearly 1,000 in Chingford have signed petitions against the plans.
Under the authority's rules, any petition with more than 4,000 names must be discussed by the full council.
As a result, if cabinet agrees to close Harrow Green library next week the decision cannot be implemented until councillors meet on Thursday October 20.
A cabinet report reveals 1,321 residents took part in its consultation exercise. Of those, 42 per cent agreed and 43 per cent disagreed with the overall shake-up of services.
The report's authors concluded from this that "there is significant support for the proposed library service model" but those living in the areas affected by the closures are "strongly opposed".
If the shake-up is approved, North Chingford, Walthamstow, Leyton and Leytonstone libraries will all become 'Library Plus' branches open seven days a week.
But branches in Hale End, Higham Hill, Wood Street and Lea Bridge will become 'Library Locals' open for just 30 hours a week.
Five other alternative proposals, including cutting the opening hours of all branches to keep Harrow Green open, were all rejected by officers in the report.
Ros Kane, of the campaign to save Harrow Green Library, said: “Local people are horrified at the idea of the library closing, as the petition shows.
“It would be a very short-sighted move. We've got to remain hopeful the councillors will not vote this through.
“But the council officers look like they are just ignoring the scrutiny panel. What's the point if their recommendations are not going to be followed?
“We have been in touched with distinguished legal expert Franic Bennion, who drew up the Libraries and Museums Act of 1964, and he thinks it could well be illegal. They want to close libraries as a result of cuts but there's nothing in the act that allows them to do that.”
What's your reaction? Contact report Daniel Binns on 0779 547 6625 or via email at dbinns@london.newsquest.co.uk
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Comments(8)
mdj
says...
1:27pm Tue 4 Oct 11
In other words, they must be grateful to central government for forcing them to abandon their old, inefficient ways! Is that really the message they want to put across: that left to themselves, typically 25% of Council spending is wasted?
They're basically saying that this would have been a good thing to do even in the absence of any budget cuts.A bizarre stance for a Labour Council, given that they could have howled with outrage at what the nasty Tories were making them do.
So, why take this perverse stance? Well, the Libraries and Museums Act forbids Councils, mandated by law to provide an 'adequate' service, from cutting that 'adequate' service purely for economic reasons. Hence this daft pretence that it's an improvement.
The alternative, of saying No to the cuts, fighting for local services, and generally doing what people think they elected them for, takes hard work and sometimes guts, and doesn't appeal to careerists who regard themselves fondly as 'professionals' and don't want to rock the boat. Labour Councillors on the Scrutiny Committee who exposed the flaws in the plan have already indicated that they will tamely follow the party Whip when the vote is taken.
More evidence that party politics is a broken model for local democracy.
On the subject of 'professionals', how many of the officials advising acceptance of this plan are Labour Party members, or even former senior Councillors of this Borough? Are they the same officials who advised a 30% cut in the William Morris Gallery budget a few years ago, causing outrage around the world? How many were involved in the loss of £15 million of Better Neighbourhoods Initiative money, for which noone has been censured, let alone jailed?
ShinySue
says...
4:55pm Tue 4 Oct 11
waltham
says...
9:37pm Tue 4 Oct 11
A total disgrace anybody that votes labour just cannot anymore.
Robbins has to go - why no call from the other party leaders. He does not represent the residents of the borough
everoptimistic
says...
7:28am Wed 5 Oct 11
The voters of Waltham Forest gave the Labour party a big majority in the last election and with the system of local government by 'cabinet' it seems that the other parties are powerless to do anything. So the best thing to do is sit it out 'til the next election, hope that Robbins and Co. leave us some cultural heritage by then and then remember to put your cross in a different box voters. Unless anyone can come up with another suggestion. How many voters have to sign to say that they would like a change of leader for it to happen? Can we still do that and would anyone like to organise it? Of course if we could we would probably get Loakes instead........
mdj
says...
10:15am Wed 5 Oct 11
Well, it seems to be a situation that they find quite comfortable, since we haven't heard a squeak out of either of them.
There is valid scope for legal challenge to this decision, but you won't hear anything about that from the opposition parties.
Tom Thumb
says...
6:26pm Wed 5 Oct 11
ShinySue wrote:Into thin air, I think.
This is an absolute disgrace! The real agenda for this council is to sell the Hall Lane library to a developer and then in the fullness of time once the Hale End library has been run into the ground to also sell that off. Both nice properties in excellent locations for a developer and the council cops the money! Now I wouldnt mind if they were honest about it and that any money they earned from it was put back into the local area i.e. Chingford and Highams Park, but the reality will be is that the money will get spent in Leyton or W'stow, or actually more likely just evaporate into thin air. This council will not rest until it drags Chingford and Highams Park down to the depths that W'stow has now reached and removed all the cultural amenities this borough has. An absolute scandal!
Robbins is equally keen to flog off Wood Street library to a developer, even though it is one of the most distinctive library buildings in the borough, architecturally.
I think Ross Wyld, a chief executive who had a genuine passion for the area he served, would be rolling in his grave if he knew what the vandals of the Labour Party had done to his local area. They are philistines, who understand the price of everything and the value of nothing.
But as mjd says, there is simply no opposition. The Lib Dems bigged themselves up at the last local and parliamentary elections and then got nowhere. And as we now know a promise by a Lib Dem is worth about as much as a North Korean bank note.
The Tories don't oppose because there is nothing that Robbins & co do that they wouldn't do themselves. The difference between the three main parties locally is more or less non-existent.
Reality in WF
says...
8:08am Thu 6 Oct 11
What is next we all wonder, when the next round of cutbacks comes.
Soon there wont be any services at all. Have the number of Management staff been reduced in line with the Libraries shakeup?. Somehow I doubt it.
Tom Thumb says...
1:22pm Tue 4 Oct 11
Robbins is the man who saw as many as 400,000 library books furtively sent off to the local incinerator to be burned.
Having emptied local libraries of their books he is now hell bent on destroying what’s left of the local library service. You can be quite sure that with their new very restricted opening hours the Hale End, Higham Hill, Wood Street and Lea Bridge branches will get shut down after a few more years.
It won’t be long before the borough with no cinema, no theatre and no arts centre will also become the borough with no libraries.
The mathematics is interesting. 42 per cent in favour and 43 per cent against translates in the wacky world of Chris Robbins as “significant support for the proposed library service model".
I expect this cost-cutting proposal once again involved the use of expensive consultants.