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.

The planning decision for the Carnegie redevelopment has now been published (3 months after the planning meeting).
The notice is here. There is confusion over the space allocated to the library, which is not defined in the plans. We are arguing for the central space to be retained for library use.

Local residents have formed a group to monitor the development and raise any problems it causes with the council. The group can be contacted via the Friends at foclchair@gmail.com.