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.

Lambeth are currently delivering a grossly misleading leaflet to homes in Herne Hill Ward.  Lambeth's current plans would not provide a viable library or a viable gym.  The library would not have sufficient space, staffing or hours to attract enough users to justify the cost of keeping it open once next year's Council Elections were out of the way.

Below are some of the specific things the leaflet says or clearly implies and the true situation in respect of each:

Readers with the time and patience to follow the Carnegie Library saga will be aware that councillors are discussing the future of the building and its grounds with a group comprising three of their fellow activists from the right of the Labour Party, Carnegie Community Trust.

Contrary to what they were saying previously, the Trust have now disclosed that they will accept the gym Lambeth have been proposing. This might be an indication that Lambeth are nearing a definite commitment to go ahead with the gym and that we should therefore be intensifying our campaign against it.

The basement excavation currently being carried out was decided on long before the gym proposal and it is not deep enough for activities which involve jumping or participants raising their hands above their heads. GLL, the company which would run the gym, say that they would need to have "Body Pump" and other vigorous group exercise classes on the ground floor. The Consulting Engineers appointed by Lambeth advise that, if there is to be gym use on the ground floor, the floor will need to be strengthened and damping inserted to contain vibration.

Over the past few years, the Friends have repeatedly asked Lambeth and the Trust's predecessors what steps would be taken to reduce vibration but no commitment to do anything in this respect has ever been made. When granting Planning Permission for the gym Lambeth's Planning Committee avoided making a decision on the uses of the ground floor by delegating this for future decision by a Council officer.

Although there would be a library service of some kind on the ground floor, we appear to be heading towards a situation where this would be disrupted by bouncing of the floor whenever a gym class was in progress. There would also be a risk of damage to the building, especially the internal glazing, and eventually of the floor collapsing. We must put a stop to this nonsense.

After lavishing money on keeping Carnegie Library closed for a year and a half, Herne Hill's Councillors are now claiming credit for the future reopening of the building, including a library.

Their recent leaflet predicts reopening "around Christmas 2017 or January 2018." This does not make sense in relation to a library service. The excavation work is programmed to last from now into late April. It will be very noisy and therefore incompatible with a library. If Lambeth go ahead with the gym that would entail further months of noisy work.

As the Councillors have never done anything to support the library and they are in danger of losing the Council Election in May 2018, their concern is likely to be the Election. They may not care whether the library would be usable or not, so long as they can distribute a leaflet a few weeks before the election claiming to have reopened the library. This would not mislead those of us who take a close interest in the library but might confuse others into thinking the situation is satisfactory.

The people distributing the recent leaflet door-to-door appear to have refrained from delivering it to homes displaying posters in support of the library. From this we can reasonably infer that the leaflet is indeed intended only for the less well informed.

The Friends are grateful to everyone who has emailed the ward councillors. The councillors have not been replying to the specific matters raised in the emails but Cllr Dickson has instead been sending out a standard email on behalf of himself and the other two ward councillors. Attached here under separate headings are corrections to some of the misinformation it contains.

In brief:

• Lambeth have signed a contract for £1.25 million to excavate the basement for a gym: Forcia contract.

  This is only the first stage of the work, the next depends on financing from GLL, which has not yet been agreed. The total cost is estimated at £3 million. The first stage is estimated to take 7 months.

  Lambeth have stated that no rent will be paid by the gym to support the library until 2023: letter from Lambeth, 31st March 2017.

• Lambeth propose to transfer the Carnegie to the 'Carnegie Community Trust' (CCT), a small group of self-appointed individuals without widespread community support. The CCT also has plans for major redevelopment work, of up to £5 million (but how this will be paid for is unknown): asset transfer assessment.
  

  Lambeth rejected the bid for the asset transfer by the Carnegie Library Association (CLA), formed by the Friends of Carnegie Library and the library user groups, with elected trustees, and which is accountable to over 300 members.

  Lambeth confirm in the asset transfer document that the Carnegie will become a "neighbourhood library service, ... staffed for approximately two hours per day ... consist of self-service facilities providing residents with access to a limited supply of books available for lending and drop off."

We are circulating more detail on all of this in our current bulletin.

There is a public meeting with DefendThe10 at St Saviour's church, Herne Hill Road,
6.30 for 7pm, Thurs August 17, in advance of the start of work on 1st September,
to give residents adequate time to discuss and agree on
what concerns them and
what THEY want.

Minutes from the most recent community liaison group meeting with Lambeth are
here

The Friends of Carnegie Library will fight on. We will be intensifying the campaign to get the library back for local people, including for the community groups who used it before Lambeth closed the library in March last year. If you aren’t already a member, please join us via the website or by post.