Library funding cuts - Town Hall approves plan for three branches to be run by volunteers

Published: 09 June 2011
by DAN CARRIER

Chalk Farm, Belsize and Heath libraries will be handed over to community groups after the Town Hall’s cabinet approved a proposal that could save £1.6million last night (Wednesday).

It means the council will now spend a year working with library friends groups and community organisations to find ways of managing the three branches, which will no longer be part of the council-provided service from midway through 2012. 

The mobile service will also close, 35 jobs will be lost, Regent’s Park library will be shut and then re-opened at a later date as an education and IT centre, and Highgate library will have to share its space with other council services.

The decision was greeted with anger by users of the three libraries, who say the plans will not work and warned their branches will close in the next few years as no viable business proposal is possible. 

Chalk Farm library user group chairwoman Philippa Jackson said they would not have the resources to run the library alone. 

She added: “It feels like the end of the road. 

“How are we going to have the time to raise the funds of around £130,000 a year needed to keep it open?”

Her views were echoed by users of Heath Library in Keats Grove. 

C-Plug (Camden Public Libraries User Group) vice-chairman and Heath library user Nigel Steward said the process used in making the cuts had meant it would be hard to form a working relationship with the Town Hall.

He added: “The lack of trust in the management of Camden’s libraries is palpable. We will be holding meetings to discuss our options. One major issue will be having faith in the Town Hall to work with us.”

But leisure chief Labour councillor Tulip Siddiq promised support to work out a viable strategy for keeping them open. The meeting was told that plans were being drawn up for the Winchester community centre to run Belsize and similar schemes were in the pipeline for the other two. 

Heath and Hampstead Society chairman Tony Hillier told the meeting an alternative should be found. 

He said: “Closing libraries is irreversible but finances may recover. A mothball option needs to be considered.”

He said that C-Plug volunteers would provide  support across all 13 libraries if the policy of handing over three libraries was not ratified.

He added: “We can organise an army of volunteers to cushion the blow of these budget cuts.”

C-Plug chairman Alan Templeton said: “We would like to see reduced opening times and set up a Camden volunteer scheme to provide extra hours.” 

Town Hall finance chief Labour councillor Theo Blackwell said that C-Plug’s calls for a six-month delay to organise a fourth option would cost an estimated £800,000.

He added: “Option D would mean a skeleton service. It is unlikely to succeed. People are more likely to contribute time and money to their local branch.”

Unison convener Phil Lewis attacked plans to shed 35 jobs. Instead, he called for senior management posts to be scrapped to save frontline services. 

The meeting, which heard deputations from the Heath and Hampstead Society, the Camden Public Library User Group, Unison and the Camden History Society, was told  controversial plans for the Local Studies Archive, based at Holborn library, had been changed. 

It was facing a £135,000 funding cut and a move to an unspecified institute. But cuts of £70,000 were agreed and the archive will definitely stay in Camden. 

Former archivist manager Malcolm Holmes said: “This is a step in the right direction.”