‘Paltry’ savings, 66% opposition to closure and still no costings or plan. Here is the text of The Library Campaign’s formal complaint about Croydon’s dodgy libraries consultation, as submitted today to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
This letter constitutes a formal complaint against the London Borough of Croydon (LBC) by The Library Campaign (TLC), acting on behalf of a number of Croydon residents, under Section 10 of the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964.
We call for a full DCMS investigation into the 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 Act.
We further intend to explore legal action at the appropriate time, on grounds including (but not limited to) numerous faults in the consultation process, which has violated the Gunning principles on a number of counts.
We have already sent detailed evidence to the council… during the consultation. To our surprise, it is still in every detail relevant to the new “plans”, which have not changed at all – except that the estimated saving from closing four libraries (different estimates in different documents!) is even more paltry than the previous estimate.
One of four: Sanderstead Library, recommended by Mayor Perry and the Conservatives for closure
Our principal concern is that consultees were presented with no coherent plan for the claimed “targeted” services to mitigate the acknowledged damage from the four closures.
Their overriding reaction (as now reported in LBC’s own words) was “confusion”, “scepticism” and a desire to be given some factual information – along with strong opposition (66%) to any closures at all – just as strong among the users of libraries not slated for closure.
To our amazement, there is still no plan. And there are still no relevant costings at all.
As we said in our original evidence, what was presented was not a plan but a cry for help.
This still applies. As before, some rather wild ideas are scattered about, involving venues and partners still unidentified. Library staff seemingly will be expected (among other things) to travel all over the area for occasional contacts, tailor-make and service collections for individual spaces and groups, all unmonitored, conduct weekly “activities” here and there, plus unspecified “events”, place and service general collections in clearly unsuitable venues such as schools and care homes, and expand the home service – even visiting mobile individuals who currently use their local library but will not use an alternative (40-50% of respondents from libraries set to close).
The library staff are also now expected to start from scratch in October, finding partners and venues, piloting makeshift new ideas, costing and evaluating the whole enterprise and undergoing training and a complete “culture change” – while simultaneously decommissioning and moving resources from four libraries due to close, also in October.
This will be a highly inefficient and stressful process. The result – though we stress again that there is no plan at all, and no costings – seems guaranteed to be an unsatisfactory “mitigation” patchwork of provision that will be an enduringly inefficient drain on staff and funds.
This will clearly put LBC in contravention of its duty under Section 7 of the 1964 Act to “provide a comprehensive and efficient library service” and arguably its duty to serve “all persons desiring to make use thereof… encouraging both adults and children to make full use of the library service”.
We re-emphasise also that this whole aspiration (we cannot call it a plan) is completely uncosted. It seems to be based on spending a projected saving solely from the building running costs of the four threatened libraries – now estimated at either £49k or £54k, depending which document you read. This sum is also earmarked for improving the remaining nine libraries. And we see no indication of the decommissioning costs of four libraries.
The Library Campaign strongly suggests that any projected saving from hasty closures is effectively zero.
All closures should be put back until LBC produces relevant costings, and a mitigation plan that can be examined and evaluated. This letter could be very much longer. We look forward to discussing the matter in detail with DCMS, alongside the Croydon residents we represent.
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’
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
As featured on Google News Showcase
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content. Our comments policy can be read by clicking here
Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network
- Inside Croydon works together with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, as well as BBC London News and ITV London
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
