CROYDON IN CRISIS: Decision to close four libraries was based on dodgy data that failed to measure use of public amenities for a range of activities, from private study for school pupils to yoga classes for the elderly.
By WALTER CRONXITE, political editor
‘Devastating’: regular library user Kiran Choda used Broad Green Library for a range of activities
“When we found out the library had closed, it was devastating. I feel isolated now.”
Those are the words of one Croydon resident who has been affected by Mayor Jason Perry’s decision to ignore a public consultation and go ahead with the closure of one-third of the borough’s public libraries.
Broad Green, Bradmore Green (in Old Coulsdon), Shirley and Sanderstead libraries closed at the end of last year in a move to save less than £500,000 per year, while opening up the possibility that the library sites could be part of the cash-strapped council’s asset disposal strategy.
The costly consultation to find excuses to close libraries was commissioned by Mayor Perry’s council during Croydon’s year as London’s Borough of Culture. Croydon Town Hall is an irony-free zone.
As Inside Croydon reported in 2023, “It seems highly likely that ‘reduced usage’ of the libraries will be used by Tory Mayor Jason Perry as one of the major excuses for closing a quarter of the borough’s libraries.”
We might have added: “Whether it is true or not.”
The consultation was another act of Mayor Perry and his council gas-lighting the public they are supposed to serve, using poor usage of the libraries as an excuse for their close when many libraries were open for less than half the working week.
Target map: council documents showed how Broad Green served a high population area, while less-well-used libraries in some lower populated areas have been kept open
BBC News reported yesterday that Croydon’s lost libraries are among 190 to have closed across the country in the past year, as local authorities seek ways to save money as their costs of providing housing and children’s and adult care continue to soar.
Children’s services, adult social care and housing the homeless are all statutory services which councils, like Croydon, have to provide by law. Public libraries are also a statutory service. But that has not stopped library closures.
Because while councils have a duty to provide a public library service, the scale of that provision has never been defined in law. Thus Croydon has gone from providing 13 public libraries for its 390,000 residents to providing nine public libraries – with two of those set to be downgraded to “hubs”.
Mayor Jason Perry’s argument for the closures, despite overwhelming public opposition aired in every public consultation on libraries in the borough (there have been four such consultations since 2012; only Perry has gone ahead with closures), was: “Less than 10% of our residents were actually visiting libraries.”
Disingenuous in the extreme, Perry’s figures were based on usage while the majority of Croydon’s libraries were open only two or three days per week.
And Mayor Perry lied to the BBC.
Perry told the BBC that the libraries with reduced opening hours were “not really serving their local communities”.
According to the BBC, the Mayor told them that his decision on which libraries to close “was really down to usage”.
The BBC quoted Mayor Perry as saying: “Those that were the lowest usage essentially were the ones that were then shut.”
Which is untrue.
According to Croydon Council’s own figures, from the report from consultants used to justify the closures, Bradmore Green and Sanderstead both had thousands more users than Purley, New Addington and South Norwood libraries. And Broad Green had better usage figures than three other libraries, two of which remain open today.
As the BBC suggests, the figures used to justify the closures were, at least, questionable. “Documents produced by the council ahead of the closure decision highlighted that ‘active user data’ did not include visitors using the library as a study space, to use the wifi or to attend an event or group.”
Residents’ views ignored: the public consultation was conducted by Mayor Perry’s council, but not listened to
The BBC report looked at the consequences of the closures for former library-users.
Kiran Choda is a full-time carer to her elderly mother. For her, the library was “a place of huge practical importance”, the BBC reports.
Choda, who was a member of the library’s now closed poetry club, said: “It opened up a whole new life for me. I’ve made friends through the library that I never would have had, and I just had a little time for myself, a little peace and serenity.
“When we found out the library had closed, it was devastating.
“I do feel isolated now.”
Broad Green is in one of the most socially deprived areas of the country. The library, and its facilities, were a vital resource in 21st Century Britain, where even the council itself is increasingly forcing residents to conduct all their business online. In Broad Green, there are many families too poor to be able to afford laptops or internet access – people would use the library’s computers to pay their bills online.
A weekly yoga class that was held in the library, since the closure, has been transferred down London Road to Croydon Voluntary Action. The distance between the Broad Green Library and CVA building is probably only a 20-minute walk. Yet the organiser, Meera Jeyakumar, reckons 15 to 20 previously regular members of the group no longer attend.
“I miss those people,” Jeyakumar told the BBC. “That’s the thing about the library – when it happened in the library, they all came.”
Chloe Smith ran a writing club which met at Broad Green Library. It now has no regular venue. “I think the closure of Broad Green is going to have a really detrimental effect on the local area.
“It is going to isolate people further because there are no other assets like the library.”
Read more: No money, no plan, no honesty: Mayor still closing 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
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Saw Part Time’s performance on London News last night. He completely misrepresented the situation in Croydon and even had the gall to claim all these cuts are improving the Croydon library service.
The trouble with piss poor Perry is he really doesn’t seem to give a monkeys about anything other than his own self interest. What a rotten fruit he is. Please god he gets voted out at the next opportunity
This is definitve Perry, why should we be surprised?
There’s evidence-based decision-making. And there’s Jason Perry, a contemptible untrustworthy noxious twit who cuts services while ignoring the facts in a pointless attempt to save money while voting himself a pay increase
Doesn’t make sense. Those in densely populated areas deserve better services . Parking , council taxes, fines, extortionate business rates, the council should be raking it in from densely populated areas. ..but are giving little back to the public there. Something just isn’t right .
Of course Shirley library had low usage figures – for several years it’s been only open a few hours a week! Set up to fail.
The report to Mayor Perry’s Cabinet on 31 January 2024 (6.29-6.30) stated that the selection (for closure) of the libraries at Shirley, Sanderstead, Broad Green and Bradmore Green was based not only on their ‘usage rates’, but also the ‘size and condition of the buildings’, the ‘size and deprivation of the catchment areas’ and their ‘capacity to provide a more comprehensive library offer through partnerships with other services and events’.
With regard to the condition of the buildings, the Council’s response to a recent FOI request has shown that NO condition surveys were carried out at Central, Ashburton, Selsdon or New Addington Libraries. So we might ask, how could the ‘condition’ of those buildings have been ‘fairly’ compared with the others?
With regard to Purley Library, the cost of urgent/essential (within two years) works identified as required there in 2020 was £280k. This is much more than at (for example) Shirley (£92k), Sanderstead (£127k), Broad Green (£26k) and Bradmore Green (£20k). 6.27-6.28 of the report also states “the library building at Purley is not well located for local communities to access and requires significant investment and maintenance. … There is little value in investing substantially to bring the necessary improvements to the current library site when it is so poorly located and cut off from the main shopping area.”
If you think that there may be a(nother) story behind why Purley Library (for instance) is still open when the four others aren’t … I think you may well be right!
The Central Library needs to stop leaving lights on overnight and in the staircases. Thought the council was bankrupt yet happy to waste council taxpayers’ money.
All these libraries have been open and serving their communities well for decades. My mother, for one, walked to Sanderstead library weekly from 1957 until the early 2000s to borrow books and took us with her throughout the ’60s and early 70s. It is an absolute disgrace that they have been closed, thus depriving thousands of people from accessing reading material and all the other services libraries provide. Jason Perry should be sacked and made to pay out of his own pocket for all the damage he has caused, especially as he’s awarded himself a substantial pay rise. What has happened to all the books from these closed libraries, many of which will have been valuable, both in monetary and historical terms? Hopefully they have all been saved and reallocated to the remaining borough libraries.