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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