Wake Up New Addo!

Croydon's New Addington Library is back in the news but the 'facts' and even the headline are seriously questionable. You can read the full article here, entitled,  "Council promises no loss of books as New Addington library moves from 'derelict' site"

Let's look at the facts:

Bookstock

"NEW Addington's library will have the same number of, or more, books when it moves to the Calat Centre, the council has promised."

The article also adds.

"Council bosses had been unable to guarantee stock levels or space at the relocated library, leaving users fearing they would be left with just a few shelves of books. But a council spokesman told the Advertiser: "Its stock levels will be maintained for borrowing or using on site."

This fails to mention that the stock now held is hugely reduced in comparison with stock held even a year ago. Books were boxed up and sold off, leaving row after row of bare or near bare shelving.  In some branches shelving and book stands were even removed to try to mask how depleted the stock had become. This was reported here and on insidecroydon.com

Space and facilities

"It will be housed across two floors of the centre in Central Parade, taking up roughly the same floor space – 400 square metres – as it does now."

The existing building is a single floor building with easy access, large windows offering natural light and a view overlooking grassed areas. The library is open plan, allowing flexible use of space and is for the sole us of the library service. You can visit this 'derelict' building, which is no the worse for wear than it has been for many years, still offering a spacious, warm, dry, purpose built space to read, study and research, before the council shuts it, that is!

The CALAT building has had to be extensively modified in order to incorporate the library, meaning greatly reduced offering of Adult Education classes such as basic Literacy and Numeracy courses, IT and the removal of essential facilities, such as back wash sinks in a purpose built room, where very popular vocational courses in hair and beauty were run in the past.

Travel to other centres for vocational and basic educational courses is a huge barrier to many New Addington residents as this requires finding not only the fare to travel but the added time to do so and often the added problem of childcare on top of this, making the additional cost prohibitive.

The library will share the space not only with the CALAT classes but the Job Centre, a nursery, an ICT suite and admin/office areas. Those who know the building well question how the CALAT Centre will be transformed into a tardis to afford the new library facility anything like the spacious area that the current library now occupies.

Additional benefits

The article states that,

"A considerable amount of new stock will be added after consultation, which has been held."

More stock will only replace the stock removed. With Croydon's record on consultations it is questionable how many of the suggestions offered will have been genuinely considered.  Who knew of this consultation? The consultation was not even adequately advertised and dates conflicted. Three months on and still no outcome advertised.

And, the article goes on to add,

"The library will have longer opening hours and refreshments facilities."

Well the CALAT building is already open longer hours as courses are run in the evening.  There is no mention of staffing and Laing will, no doubt, install self-service machines. Is this really a plus?  If access is a plus why has Croydon not made the extremely underused ICT suite in the CALAT Centre available to the public years ago, given the high demand for the computers in the existing library?

And we get refreshments! Well if a couple of vending machines is a selling point Croydon council really are showing their contempt for New Addington residents. These could have been installed in the existing library many years ago if this is what was needed or desired.  By all accounts received, the existing vending machines, housing chocolate bars and snacks has not been replenished for some time.

With many food and beverage outlets offering a choice of well-priced, fresh goods in the parade of shops opposite is there really any demand for pre-packed mechanically-dispensed junk-food items?

The unwitting accomplices

New Addington Pathfinders, a community group, have been used as a pawn in this shambles. Whilst championing the importance of the library for the estate they are taken in by council spin. They have assured residents that anything could be ordered in, failing to realise that DVDs and the like could not, and that any book items ordered incurred a charge.

They readily accept without question that a building that the residents still use is, in fact, derelict, yet have remained silent on the matter for years. They are just thankful that the estate, one of the most deprived areas of Croydon, is not losing the library facility totally!

Whilst more affluent and/or proactive areas such as Old Coulsdon, Norbury, Upper Norwood and Sanderstead are well-represented by local groups,(even if failed by their Residents' Associations in some cases; Sanderstead's in particular!) Pathfinders have given up the fight for essential facilities to serve a community ill-equipped to fight the battle for themselves as simply existing, finding work or putting food on the table are higher priority.  The fact that the council plays on the silence of this community because of their vulnerability is sickening.

Wake Up New Addington! You need to stand up to be heard.

Anyone is welcome to post on this blog or get in touch, in confidence.

Croydon stand united on libraries. Be part of the fight back!

Have what little say you can on New Addington Library

The closure of the purpose-built New Addington library is not negotiable, according to sources. The decision was taken without any consultation with library users and local residents.The closure of the library, which many suspect is to make way for a Tesco store or similar, is being pitched to the public as a relocation.


The library will be moved into the nearby CALAT (Adult Education) building, joining CALAT, Job Centre Plus and The Little Stars Nursery, who currently occupy the space. In addition to adding library services the centre will also provide housing and council enquiry services and will be renamed The New Addington Hub.  That's an awful lot to pack into an already well-occupied and well-used space!

The move has been delayed several times, originally announced by Cllr Sara Bashford back in January 2012, via the local press when she struggled to come up with feasible responses to the obvious questions a move like this raised, such as exactly where would the library space be allocated within the building and she was unable to give any reassurances regarding book stock. Admitting she simply did not know what space the library might be able to occupy seems a very inadequate level of detail on which to base such a major decision.

Since then there has been an extensive cull of books in preparation for the move, leaving row upon row of empty shelves and top shelves 'filled' with books displayed, front on, to help fill the void. The valuable courses run at the CALAT Centre have been cut also, as has much of their teaching space, in order to accommodate the new hub.

The latest news though is that a consultation has been launched to find out what library users value, and copies are available in the library yet a press release regarding this is yet to be released.

The consultation is pretty basic. The council are not asking what impact this new arrangement might have on you, the resident, but then it is very difficult to say with such scant information.

If you wish to have what little say the council will permit you to make, you can find the adults' and the children's consultation documents on line here: http://www.croydon.gov.uk/democracy/consultations/newaddington

The closing date is 21 October, 2012 - a Sunday when not one of Croydon libraries is open to receive your response and Royal Mail will not be delivering.

Unfortunately the hard copies, only just hitting libraries this week, already muddy the waters as they are clearly printed with the closing date of 30th September. No doubt residents will be delighted to learn that that Cllr Tim Pollard, who replaced Cllr 'Booktoken' Bashford as lead in the area of libraries, is carrying on the Croydon tradition of flawed library consultations.

Croydon spends £40K on library consultant

The Croydon Advertiser has covered the news that £40K is being spent on a consultant to oversee the outsourcing of all Croydon libraries. You can read the full article here. 

We encourage you to read the comments, including those of the campaign group:

“Anyone who wants more details can follow @SaveCroydonLibs @SaveSanderstead on twitter, the blog soslibrary.blogspot.com and website www.savesandersteadlibrary.co.uk 

We need to ask ourselves why is Croydon Council so shy to share any details of their plans. The council only consulted on six libraries, ignored the "do nothing" option and admit it was mainly the users of only those libraries who responded. They have denied residents the breakdown on 412 responses they say informed their decision and are outsourcing the whole network without consulting users of the other libraries. 

There is also the plight of Upper Norwood Library @SaveUNlibrary and the announcement that New Addington Library will close and move to a yet unknown part of the cramped accommodation within the CALAT centre.”

and the detailed response by Cllr Timothy Godfrey:

“Basically Croydon Conservatives have lost control of the budget. The Library budget is approx £8million a year. They run 12 libraries and one central library for this. Upper Norwood Library, run jointly with Lambeth costs £400,000 a year (it is far larger than a branch library) with £200,000 being contributed by Croydon. 

Given how popular all the Croydon libraries are, with residents keen to get involved and support their local library, this is a golden opportunity to devolve the running of the libraries to local library panels. Keep the staff on Croydon payroll. Devolve the library budget, just like the government did over 15 years ago to schools (LMS) and you could end up with big savings and involve the community in setting priorities, and help to grow library use. 

Based on the costs of the much larger Upper Norwood Library, a budget saving of at least £1.8million could be made. Here is the maths:
Croydon branch libraries 12 x £400,000 = £4.8millionCroydon Central Library and home book service = £1.2millionUpper Norwood Library Contribution = £200,000Total budget requirement = £6.2millionBudget surplus: £1.8million
Instead of spending £40,000 on an expensive consultant, the Council should work with the local community to release a new era in community run libraries.  

I have set these plans out at full council and have written about this on my blog (timothygodfrey.net) You can read the post in full here.  I have also has an article published on this on the website of the national Co-operative party (party.coop).

The Tory Council ignore these positive suggestions because they are only interested in selling our libraries off in one contract and not working with local Croydon communities."

The comments left clearly demonstrate that local residents view the council's plan as ludicrous.

Questions for Cllr Sara Bashford

We wrote of our doubts regarding the veracity of this article in the Croydon Advertiser only yesterday.

You can read it here. 


Were we just a little cynical, we wondered?  But then  this seemingly unrelated article in the Streatham Guardian was brought to our attention, regarding the full Lambeth Council meeting, held on Wednesday 25th January 2012. 


Here, amongst the other details of council business and the plight of Streatham Library, 
is this statement,  

"Councillors also approved a motion condemning Conservatives at Croydon Council for their decision to withdraw funding the Upper Norwood Library, which is jointly run by both councils."

No wonder Cllr Sara Bashford was so keen to give the Croydon Advertiser another Croydon Council "exclusive" on libraries, trying to spin things in a more positive light.

Can Lambeth really be getting things so very wrong? Has Croydon really reversed its decision to withdraw from the management of Upper Norwood Joint Library, along with withdrawing any further financial support? We doubt it.

We will publish any comment Cllr Sara Bashford chooses to provide to make clear the situation. She has not engaged with campaigners so far but we remain open to hearing from her.  Let us and all Croydon residents know the real situation please, Cllr Bashford.

• What is the current situation with regard to Upper Norwood Joint Library and what financial commitment has been made, if any, post April 2012?

• And what is the exact situation with Croydon libraries in general? 

You gave the message that all libraries were reprieved, there would be no closures, but word reaches us that New Addington is to close.  It will be shoe-horned into limited space in the CALAT (Adult Ed) Centre, along with the Job Centre, an existing nursery and CALAT (who campaigners were told knew of the loss of half their teaching space of six classrooms BEFORE the consultation results were made public or move announced). It has been reported that you, as cabinet member with responsibility for libraries, took this decision without knowing what space might be available to accommodate the library. You could also not make any commitment as to to the level of  book stock that might be available in the new setting - suspected to be the foyer area with revolving door, making it unsuitable as insecure for those with young children.

A local group 'New Addington Pathfinders' seem to be allaying fears of concerned residents by advising that library users can order any book they desire. This has not been the case since at least April 2011, as some have already pointed out.  Added to this, any reservation from within the Croydon libraries network attracts a charge of £1.10 - quite a tall price to pay for a free public library service - not only pay for the privilege of reserving a book you wish to borrow because it is not held in your library but with the added cost in time in the delay accessing the item required. Some residents report delays of six to eight weeks, including books showing as being in stock in another Croydon library. If this policy has been amended we are sure Croydon residents will be delighted.

And why is the book stock being boxed up, across the borough?  Is it true that the lure of selling off stock at 10p an item to an external company, who will sell on what they can, and recycle what they can't, really the prime motive?  Is it a tactic to reduce the book stock to pave the way, as a sweetener, for those bidders who are successful in procuring the service, to allow them to make the claims to have improved the book stock of the service, as they will be able to regarding the now depleted permanent staffing? Or is it really a promoting of Croydon Libraries, that "less is more" - less choice leads to more borrowing?  Very interesting thinking indeed.  We have to share with you that this particular 'strategy' has elicited quite a bit of amusement, indeed belly-laugh, laugh out loud moments! - If only it were not such a serious issue, Cllr Bashford.

We are offering you the opportunity to speak with us, negotiate, communicate and give a clear position to Croydon. Please take up our offer.

If you would like Cllr Bashford to speak frankly, maybe you might like to prompt her by requesting she respond to this post.  You can email her at: sara.bashford@croydon.gov.uk

And do let us know how you get on.  Feel free to BCC or CC us in at soslibrary@hotmail.co.uk or add your comments here.

Please remember to add a name to your posts.  It adds more weight!