Ahead of Thursday's election, here are some facts about the situation for the Carnegie Library. Our latest bulletin Pages 4 and 1 and Pages 2 and 3.

A leaflet about the library and proposed events in Brockwell Park has been produced and distributed by some local residents and library supporters.

This was not produced by the Friends, and some of the information contained in the leaflet is incomplete.  Here are corrections:

We sent a summary of the arrangements for Carnegie Library to Cllr Sonia Winifred, who is Lambeth's Cabinet Member responsible for libraries, and copied in the senior Herne Hill councillor, Jim Dickson.  We asked her to come back to us if anything in it  needed correction.  A month has elapsed without any response and we therefore infer that the summary is accurate in all respects.  A copy is here.

Contrary to what Lambeth say:

• What they are doing to our library is not a money saving exercise.
• The planned gym will always need subsidising and it will never make a contribution to the cost of the library.

Although the reduction in library opening hours would save about £125,000 a year in staff costs, Lambeth appear to be providing about the same amount to their Carnegie Community Trust to run the main room as a Church hall type of facility instead of the previous flexible use as a library and hall.  So there would not be any saving overall.

The disclosed estimates of the capital costs of the building works total £3 million.  Final costs of Lambeth projects always seem to be a multiple of the original estimates.  We should therefore expect the final cost of the works to be at least £5 million.  Lambeth are currently borrowing at 4.7% per annum.  Assuming a generous 20 years for repayment the financing costs come out at £400,000 a year.  The basement is not deep enough for a gym and there are many cheaper gyms offering more facilities in locations more convenient for almost anyone who wants a gym.  It would be hopelessly unrealistic to expect the gym to attract enough custom to cover its running costs, let alone generate an additional £400,000 a year to cover the financing costs.

One view is that Councillors are just indulging themselves at the People's expense in the standard Lambeth nonsense of always having money for pet projects but not for services to the public.  For example, Lambeth are simultaneously:

• Spending about £100 million on "Your Nu Town Hall."
• Refusing to pay the water bill of £2,000 a year for the paddling pool in Ruskin Park.  They say that the Friends of Ruskin Park, whose volunteers already manage and clean the pool, must pay this in future.

However, there is a more sinister aspect to the current and proposed building work to the library in that all of it is more consistent with Lambeth's previously announced plan to sell the library for redevelopment than with providing a gym in the basement or restricting the use of the ground floor.  The details are here.

Lambeth's plans for our library are complicated and presented by them in ways which are confusing.  The Friends have therefore tried in the following summary to describe all the key features as clearly as possible.  For the sake of simplicity we have omitted the scandalous waste of money involved.

Lambeth plan to open a library in the building in February, then open a gym confined to the basement in June and finally open the main room as a sort of church hall at an unknown future date.  Neither the library nor the gym or the hall if it ever opened would be viable.

The library would have barely enough books and these would be in a cramped space.  There would not be a separate children's library, only a small area with furniture for children.  There would not be room for a Teen Zone or space for socialising or group activities.  The library would only be open for about two hours a day and it would be staffed by only one person, either a Library Assistant or a professional Librarian.  In a matter of months Lambeth would no doubt announce that the library is not attracting enough visits or lending sufficient numbers of books to justify the space and quantity of books devoted to it.

The gym would not have enough headroom for users to raise their hands above their heads or jump.  This disadvantage combined with competition from cheaper gyms with more facilities in locations more convenient for most potential users strongly suggests that it would never break even financially.

The hall after removing the bookcases and covering the glazed partitions would be an unattractive, echoey space with plain walls and the building would not have a kitchen.  The existing kitchen and the small meeting room next to it are currently being converted to toilets for users of the hall.

Even Lambeth's "community group" who would be expected to run the hall, Carnegie Community Trust, say that the plans are not feasible.  They object that Lambeth could terminate their payments to the Trust in respect of the spaces occupied by the library and gym at any time, which would force the Trust into insolvency.

Lambeth intend to open the library 11 weeks before the Council Elections after keeping the library closed for nearly two years.  They plan to have the library open for 40 hours a week or more until a few weeks after the Elections instead of the usual two hours a day.  It should be readily apparent that all this is blatant electioneering.

The Friends will continue the campaign for restoration of the library comprising properly staffed suitable spaces for library use and activities compatible with a library.