Under threat: Bradmore Green Library has one of the best value-for-money figures of all the borough’s libraries
Plans to close or downgrade half the borough’s public libraries are being rushed through, as just three days’ notice of an event for Old Coulsdon residents demonstrates
Croydon Council gave Old Coulsdon residents just three weekdays’ notice of a “webinar” being staged tonight where they are supposed to have a crucial opportunity to discuss the threat to close their public library at Bradmore Green.
Opposition to Croydon Mayor Jason Perry’s plans to close or downgrade half the borough’s public libraries is expected to gather pace in the coming weeks, as the council stages a 10-week-long, lip-service public consultation.
Protests are expected later this month when Perry takes his mayoral “roadshow” to Sanderstead, which has another of the four libraries that the Mayor wants to flog off to property developers to help ease the debt burden of the cash-strapped council.
Under threat: Broad Green is the only library threatened with closure in the north of the borough
Bradmore Green in Coulsdon, Broad Green, Sanderstead and Shirley are the libraries under threat of Perry’s axe. Three other libraries – New Addington, Purley and South Norwood — are earmarked to be downgraded into what the council calls “community hubs”.
Despite the very short notice given for tonight’s webinar, it is expected that the council could use a low turn-out to try to demonstrate disinterest and a lack of opposition to the Tory Mayor’s closure plans.
“This will form part of a wider consultation with the public and voluntary and public sector organisations across the borough,” according to council papers.
“Sufficient time will be allowed and efforts made to reach residents across the borough, not just library users or those areas with a library building.”
As one disenchanted resident, who has Bradmore Green Library at the end of their street, told Inside Croydon, “So the council considers three days as sufficient time?”
The Old Coulsdon locals are not happy at the prospect of having one of the few remaining benefits that they receive for their sky-high Council Tax being removed. “Developers are, no doubt, circling at the prospect of this closure and already bashing their calculators to see how much ‘improving the community’ with a block of flats will put in their pockets,” one resident said.
“We have the opportunity to submit questions in advance,” they said: the “in advance” aspect, of course, allows council officials to sift through the most tricky to answer, and make sure that they are not raised.
The council’s own usage figures for Bradmore Green, for instance, demonstrate that this smaller, village-feel library is one of the borough’s most cost effective provisions to residents, indicated by the Cost Per Visit figure.
And the resident says, “I also have a question about how the council prioritises spending.
“For example, should they be spending thousands of pounds taking Inside Croydon to court…” [Ed writes: the council lost] “…while closing public libraries?”
Cabinet member for communities and culture, Councillor Andy Stranack, and the council’s director for culture and community safety, Kristian Aspinall – the duo who have been behind the Borough of Culture year – “will explain the proposals at the online meeting, which will be held on Wednesday February 7, from 7pm-8.30pm,” the council’s lastminute.com announcement said.
“The session will also explain how residents can get involved in the 10-week-long consultation and answer residents’ questions.” This will include a public meeting at the Old Coulsdon Congregational Church at 7pm on February 19.
Read more: Sanderstead among four public libraries under threat of closure
Read more: Consultants’ year-long study looks to close four public libraries
Read more: Lip-service webinars fail to consider libraries’ community future
Read more: Libraries are our long-term investment. Don’t squander it
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
The reason why Croydon Tories are rushing through their “proposals” to close the Bradmore Green library is because they’ve already made up their minds it’s going to shut. Perry isn’t going to “listen”. The consultation is a sham. But that doesn’t matter. Come 2026, the Old Coulsdon locals will still vote Conservative. Same goes for Sanderstead and Shirley.
With Broad Green being permanently Labour, the Tories have nothing to lose.
The claim that the review is “in the context of the Council’s current financial position including a debt burden of £1.6 billion” is bollocks.
It’s about ripping the guts out of community services so that our part-time piss-poor Mayor can suck up to a corrupt Tory government that has given away billions of pounds of our money to make themselves, their friends and their donors rich