Libraries correspondent GENE BRODIE on the latest twist in the long-running saga
The cobbled-together, evidence-lite and contradictory report recommending the closure of four of the borough’s public libraries now faces a legal challenge – even before Croydon’s Mayor, Jason Perry, gets the wretched document rubber-stamped by his cabinet stooges later this month.
Closure threat: Sanderstead is one of four public libraries that Mayor Perry wants to shut
The Library Campaign, the national charity that has been fighting a valiant rear-guard action in the face of a decade and a half of austerity to uphold the importance of public library services, has today filed a formal complaint to government over Perry’s dodgy dossier.
In the complaint, the experienced and watchful Library Campaign experts say, “We call for a full DCMS investigation into [Croydon] council’s current library plans (such as they are) and intervention to secure improvements.
“This a matter of some urgency, as the council has produced a welter of unsatisfactory and contradictory documents just a week ago, for decision on September 25. We also invoke Section 7 of the 1964 [Public Libraries and Museums] Act… We further intend to explore legal action… on grounds including (but not limited to) numerous faults in the consultation process, which has violated the Gunning principles on a number of counts.”
The in-house lawyers at piss-poor Perry’s council look to have dropped yet another clanger… or three. The Library Campaign has intervened previously over Croydon officials’ half-arsed efforts – and they won on that occasion, too.
This latest threat to Croydon’s library services appears existential, partly prompted by the council’s dire financial position, and with strong suggestions that piss-poor Perry wants to flog over some, or all, of the closed library sites.
Last year, the council paid a small fortune (enough to pay two library assistants for a year) for a bunch of consultants to come up with a libraries service report. The end result appeared remarkably similar in its closure recommendations to two previous (and equally expensive) consultants’ reports on libraries.
The council then carried out a skewed public inquiry earlier this year, and sat on its recommendations for nearly six months so as not to damage Tory MP Chris Philp’s election prospects.
Last week, when the council finally released its own paper, supposedly based on the consultation findings (which have not been published in full), and entirely predictably, the council said it wants to close public libraries at Sanderstead, Shirley, Old Coulsdon (Bradmore Green) and Broad Green. These libraries include some of the borough’s busiest and best-used – according to the council’s own figures.
Now the Library Campaign has reported Croydon to the government “because of the poor standard of its plan for libraries”.
“Local authorities have a legal duty to provide a library service under the 1964 Public Libraries and Museums Act,” Laura Swaffield, the Library Campaign chair, told Inside Croydon.
Highly critical: Laura Swaffield of The Library Campaign
“That service is legally required to be ‘comprehensive and efficient’. Equally, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has legal powers to investigate any service if there is a complaint that it is falling short – and can intervene to order improvements.
“We have now made a formal complaint to the DCMS. What Croydon has proposed, for decision on September 25, is the reverse of efficient. We cannot honestly even describe it as a ‘plan’.
“Croydon is also open to legal challenge for the poor quality of its consultation, which fails to meet required standards such as adequate information.
“Croydon seems determined to close four much-loved libraries, although the saving from this would be so small that we judge it to be effectively zero (or negative).
Locally listed: the library at Bradmore Green has certain protections
“In return, it makes a vague offer to ‘mitigate’ the damage by getting librarians to travel all over the area dropping off books and running occasional activities – in places not yet identified.
“There are no costings and no details. Croydon would not even start to organise this bizarre provision until the libraries have been closed!
“The only certainty about this mysterious ‘mitigation’ is that it would be an extraordinarily inefficient use of staff and resources. Meanwhile, Croydon residents have been repeatedly denied any chance to judge what’s offered against what they want.
“The latest consultation finds 66% are against any closure – including people whose own library is not under threat. In Croydon’s own words, their reaction to the ‘mitigation’ plans was ‘confusion’, ‘scepticism’ and requests for proper information.
“Croydon residents have been consistent in this for years. They know that, once closed, libraries don’t come back. They would rather balance the books by reducing hours until the financial emergency is over.
“Croydon has recently tried this. But, as it admits, the whole thing was so mismanaged that it ended by making all libraries almost impossible to visit.
“Efficient? We don’t think so.”
Read more: Perry’s ‘cruel closures’ of one-quarter of borough’s libraries
Read more: Closing libraries is a sign of ‘failed administration’ – say Tories
Read more: Libraries are our long-term investment. Don’t squander it
Read more: ‘The council is dismantling our borough, service by service’
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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
I am SO GLAD that this farce by our council is being challenged and its clear this is yet another piss poor muddle by our council and useless mayor i hope that the real cost of this debacle comes out of their pay packets not the ratepayers
It was clear right from the start that this process was never about providing a library service, it was just about finding buildings and land that Jason Perry could sell off to fill the massive hole in his mismanaged budget.
I fully support the challenge to the dreadful closure plan and I wish the Library Campaign every success.
We need to stop the incompetent short-termism of the Conservatives in Croydon Council and get the austerity obsessed Labour Government to realise that we need to invest in our public services because they can’t be cut any more.
Future generations will thank us all if we take a stand and join the campaign to save our libraries.
I hope they throw the book at them
The Activist Group report was authored by one Eric Bohl, star of a couple of big Council roles before swanning off to the consultancy sector.