CROYDON COMMENTARY: The latest sham consultation over the closure of some of the borough’s libraries – with half under threat of being downgraded or shut forever – looks like the end-game to ALISON HUNT
So there’s yet another consultation over the closure of certain libraries in the borough.
Long-term fight: the battle to save Croydon’s libraries has been going on for so long that the primary-aged children in this 2012 photograph are all adults now. But the threat remains
After fighting this for many years, I think this time we can all agree that the writing is on the wall. We now have to stand back, powerless, while our once lovely borough is taken apart by the financial incompetences of the leaders of Croydon Council.
The reasons for keeping libraries open are many.
Books are expensive, the cost of living is high, so why not borrow books instead of buying them? The library also acts as a social hub, a place for people to sit and work in the warm, access a computer or other information.
The council has been trying to close libraries for over a decade now. The cost of running the service plus the high value of the land the buildings occupy makes them a good target for a council drowning in debt. But you have to look at the figures.
The number of people using the libraries has gone down, they tell us. We can’t argue with that. But isn’t that to be expected when many of our libraries are only open two days a week? And those are weekdays up to 6 o’clock. When can you visit the library if you work?
You have to be suspicious, don’t you?
Deceptive figures: making our public libraries more difficult to access, with short and inconvenient opening hours, is being used by the council as an excuse to close them. But their own figures show they plan to close some of the better-used libraries
So what do we want? If the people of Croydon have given up using libraries, then they ought to close but we must think carefully before we allow that to happen.
Do we really want to be inside looking at screens all the time with no access to social spaces? And if we sit back and give the green light to this, what will be next? Our parks?
I will add that our libraries are fantastic spaces with hardworking, friendly staff. I don’t think the council will stop at four library closures (Bradmore Green in Coulsdon, Broad Green, Sanderstead and Shirley, with two others earmarked to become “hubs”).
This is just the start.
The council is dismantling our once lovely borough, service by service. Shame on them.
But if the people of Croydon are happy to see this happen, then so be it.
As for me I still think seeing the look on a child’s face when they sit in the library surrounded by books and realise they can take some home is worth the fight.
- Croydon Council is not doing too much to publicise its public consultation. Perhaps, like the libraries themselves, it would rather the public does not use it. The consultation can be found by clicking here. It is due to close in April, after which, they will close four libraries…
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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We need to start thinking about libraries and space as a community facility and open it up for other organisations to start offering services. We cannot keep closing community facilities and selling off just because their original purpose is no longer what it used to be. The staff and Council would have to be more flexible to allow it to happen.
As you’ve said, the consultation has been rigged again but using figures based on opening hours that prevent most people from visiting and with a proposal to make the old and infirm travel further. But even on the published figures it doesn’t stack up – New Addington and South Norwood are the most expensive per visit at £10 and £11 but there are no plans to close either. Bradmore Green costs half as much per visit as South Norwood but is in the firing line. They will of course do what they want and come for the rest later. If the stories about cutting local government spend to pay for tax cuts in tomorrow’s budget are true, Councils will have no choice.
“Do we really want to be inside looking at screens all the time with no access to social spaces?”
Sadly, that is exactly what people want to do these days. It is not just libraries, but small independent book shops that have been sacrificed at the altar of modern technology. The real problem is getting people to get back into printed books again. If this cannot be done then the future of libraries is bleak,
Yesterday afternoon Bradmore Green library was really busy because the reading club had just finished at the point children came in from Bradmore C of E school next door. We, the Community, use our library on the 2 days it is open because we have better access for the range of users than trying to get on a bus into Coulsdon or Purley. New Addington didn’t support their public meeting; they have a tram route to other places as well as busses. Why is the Council penalising us in favour of under utilised New Addington? The reasoning by the council does not make sense.
It’s quite clear that this whole exercise is nothing to do with improving life for Croydon residents – it’s just about selling off public buildings to pay a debt caused by Council mismanagement and Government cuts to funding.
As Harold MacMillan said, they are selling off the family silver to pay the bills. It makes no economic sense and it’s destroying the gifts we were given by previous generations and denying them to future generations.
We do need to fight to save our public services and not just for ourselves. We owe to those people who worked so hard to build up our public services and we owe to our children and future generations to come.
Professor Noam Chomsky wrote ““That’s the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.”
What’s been happening here is that the Croydon Conservatives have been defunding our libraries, making sure they don’t work, making people angry, with the intention of closing them. Then selling the land for redevelopment.
Blaming Labour’s crass mismanagement of the council’s finances is a very convenient fig leaf. Without it, Croydon Tories would be forced to blame their own party in government.
The Conservatives crass mismanagement of the national economy and their multi-million pound thefts of taxpayers cash for themselves, friends and donors is part of an overall attack on public services and the public. Councils up and down the country are being starved of cash – deliberately.
When Liz Truss spoke in America to a group of far-right extremists about “the deep state” and her desire to cut taxes, she was portrayed as being crazy. She was just saying out loud what many in her party actually think and are quietly working towards.