Over the last election campaign, which seems far more than 18 months ago, there was a lot of concern from residents in Peninsula ward and myself about the fate of the East Greenwich Library. During the election campaign, residents were led to believe that the Council had promised to secure the future of the Library in the long-term and in 2010 renovated the library.
Therefore I was a little surprised last Thursday evening to be informed at the Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee, that work had started on the new Greenwich Centre (to be based on the old Greenwich Hospital site) and that “It (the centre) will replace the current East Greenwich library.”
In March 2010 greenwich.co.uk reported that “He (Cllr Fahy) added that he would continue to work with the Friends of East Greenwich Library and Ward Councillors ‘to maximise a long term future for the building’”. It would appear from the report on Thursday that this ‘long term future’ will not be as a Library.
The report explained that the closure of the Arches Leisure Centre and East Greenwich Library will result from the creation of the new Greenwich Centre and implied that the buildings will be sold off to pay for this project. The report explained that the cost of modernising the Arches would be £17.6m but failed to explain why the Council had invested in repairing and improving the East Greenwich Library only to sell it off once a new centre is built.
I did ask about whether there had been any consultation about the closure of the Library but was told this would take place in the future. This seems strange as the decision to spend £30m building a new set of Council Offices and homes which the centre will be part of, has clearly already been taken. Surely any consultation will be irrelevant as the Council has already decided on the final outcome.
The closure is a real blow to those people who thought they had secured the future of this historic library which was built by the philanthropist Andrew Carnegie’s foundation and celebrated its 105th birthday last year.
The Committee was informed that plans for the new centre include:-
- 645 homes in 5 blocks (of which 314 homes will be affordable & 53 will be family homes).
- A new library
- Two new swimming pools and leisure facilities
- A new service centre
- A new Health Centre
Although the report suggested that work on the new centre would start in 2012, officers informed Councillors that holes were already being dug and the centre should take around 27 months to complete.
Cllr Spencer Drury is the leader of Greenwich Conservatives.
Spencer – I have not the slightest intention of joining in political point scoring on this issue, or indeed any other. I hope any Peninsula Ward residents with an interest in this, or other, issues, will get in touch with me (or Dick or Miranda). Along with many local residents this is something we have been involved with for a very long time. Hopefully they know where I am – I am sure Rob will forward anything to me if not.
Mary- If you think Spencer is point scoring wouldn’t it help if you rebutted him here rather than trying to keep things under wraps in the time honoured Greenwich Labour way?
Sorry, in that first contribution I mean to say “CHEAP political point scoring”.
Uplifting for all residents to see Greenwich councillors engaged in meaningful debate. Sigh…
What is Spencer’s actual position here? Do the Tories oppose a new library within the Greenwich Centre and favour maintaining the old one?
Would be interesting to see if the new powers within the Localism Bill can be used to get the old library and the Arches listed as assets of community value so that the community can bid to set up projects rather than just sell them off to the highest bidder.
I do appreciate how difficult it is to be in opposition and Spencer is entitled to his point of view however misguided he might be. I feel sure that members of the East Greenwich Cultural Corridor will be taking a keen interest in the building post development of the new Library. I do believe that there is a future for the building as an Arts Centre or Creative Hub. Watch this space
The concerns that Greenwich Conservatives raised at the time about the future of the Library and the old hospital site were amplifying concerns raised by local people about the long term neglect of their local services at the expense of promises of vanity projects by Labour that never seemed to materialise – concerns that Greenwich Conservatives share (see http://gipsymoth.blogspot.com/2009/11/when-pictures-tell-many-words.html for my thoughts on the issue back in 2009).
Our position on East Greenwich library has always been that, as a service and building donated to the people of Greenwich by Andrew Carnegie, the council as their trustee should have sought to develop a sustainable plan to maintain the existing library site, whilst acknowledging that modern library facilities differ from those of the past. Instead, the building has been allowed to decay to the point where it has become expedient (in the council’s eyes) to sell it off for property development.
Our position on the hospital site at the election was that the site should be opened up and made available for a suitable alternative public use, since the developer originally earmarked to lead the development went under. Cllr Quibell at the time said that it was “very difficult” to change plans for the redevelopment since there were too many stakeholders to permit the consideration of any alternatives suggested by local people.
East Greenwich Library is just one of many of our local services (see Charlton Lido, Greenwich Community Law Centre, Blackheath Bluecoat and the Foot Tunnels for more examples) that have suffered because Greenwich Labour has neglected its responsibility to direct the inglorious but essential day to day management of Council services in favour of pursuing expensive and poorly considered vanity projects.
Greenwich Conservatives are by no means in favour of preserving the borough and its public services in aspic in every instance – the needs and circumstances of local people change all the time, and the Council should change to meet these. However where it has been necessary for the Council to pursue service reform, I have found it to be the public perception that, for all the large amounts of money it spends on marketing and communications, the Council does not appear to listen to what local people actually want.
Charlie, you may be right in suggesting that the Council rarely listens to local people, although I doubt a Conservative administration would be any different. However, I’m intrigued – what are the vanity projects that you twice refer to?