Has LSSI pulled out of the race?

The latest news comes from Alan Wylie's Stop the Privatisation of Public Libraries blog.  Has LSSI withdrawn from the the bidding process to run Croydon and Wandsworth Libraries? Who knows?

Certainly Croydon assured residents who responded to the libraries consultation in huge numbers, numbers never seen before in any other consultation process run by Croydon, that they would be kept informed, yet nothing could be further from the truth. Residents have been astounded at the garbled messages delivered by Cllr Bashford since the consultation and the lack of sound information. It appears that Cllr Pollard, who took on responsibility for libraries in the recent cabinet reshuffle, has taken a leaf out of Cllr Bashford's book, adopting her approach of complete silence on the matter.

Croydon residents and library campaigners rely on announcements from Wandsworth and information from national campaigners to piece together what might be the case, with regard to our libraries.

Not long after Civica withdrew from the tendering process, allowing an in-house bid from Wandsworth to be added for consideration,  it seems LSSI may have followed suit and withdrawn.

Read more here.

Word is that the final shortlisting has been put back to July from the intended June date, where five will be shortlisted to three. At this rate it seems there will be few left in the process from which to choose.

Perhaps it might be timely to remind Cllr Pollard, who is also deputy leader of Croydon Council, of the campaign group. Save Croydon Libraries campaign was formed from the Save Sanderstead Library Campaign after it became clear that all Croydon Libraries were under threat, even though users of only six libraries had been consulted.  Our reasons for setting up the campaign are set out here, although unsurprisingly the link on the Croydon Council website no longer works!

We set up the campaign group to engage with the council, as advised by the council, yet have had no real engagement to date. So Cllr Pollard, if Croydon really do stand by their words,

"We really do value the time and effort you make to tell us what you think."

we look forward to hearing from you very shortly.  It is not too late to put things right.