5pm - (before Council Meeting starts)

Something very bad for libraries in Lambeth is currently underfoot at the Council and those of us who care about our local libraries need to tell the Council we don't like it.

There is a restructuring of positions underway and what do you know the position of Head of Libraries has been deleted. This is hollowing out the library service, a dismantlement from the inside out. We will have our buildings (for hire) and maybe a few old books, while they last, but we will not have the library service we call our own.

The library service will be run as a sub-service along with other recreation services, like gyms and pools. We like gyms and pools but we think the libraries should be run by dedicated professional librarians. We happen to have a very experienced team of professional librarians in Lambeth, who have been doing a bang-up job for us for the last twenty years - why is the Council taking this apart?

And perhaps the saddest part of the story is that no Councillor will tell you this is what they want. Our elected Councillors know what their electors care about - but they are powerless to do anything about this, they will tell you, because it is THE OFFICERS who have done this. And even worse, it was the brain-child of one Officer in particular who skipped out of the borough around the time of the changing of the guard at the last election, parlaying her reputation as a slasher to land a position in Croydon there to eliminate whatever is left.

Apparently there is no stopping this work of supreme vandalism, but there will be a review in a few months time and there will be a chance for scrutiny retrospectively. We need this to be scrutinised and reversed.

Please come to the Demo in order to find out more about what is going on and to show your support, to hear from others in the crowd and from the union representatives who have organised this and - we hope - from any Councillors brave enough who will have here the opportunity before they go in to their monthly Council Meeting to explain themselves to us face to face.