[Campaignforrealdemocracy] Interesting Question in New Cross | 11 April

[Mark Barrett]

Forwarded Message:
Subject: New Cross Library / The Future of New Cross Mon 11 April
The Council have announced the closure of New Cross Library for 28th May, at
the same time they also continued an apparently open process of bidding to
take over the library. However, in reality, they had already made their mind
up about who was going to take them over. Darren Taylor is ‘social
entrepreneur’ who has been running a kind of library on the Pepys estate in
Deptford for a few months subsidised by his computer recycling firm Eco
Computers, he offered to take on 4 of the libraries due for closure.

There are many problems with this deal but to sum up he seems to be prepared
to allow council to provide no financial contribution to the running of the
library or making the repairs that are needed after the years of neglect,
it’s not exactly clear who would actually hold the lease and it allows the
council to continue with its plan to make librarians redundant. He also
seems ready to allow the council to continue to use the basement of the
building for storage, rather than making this available for community use.
All the these things can easily be improved as the next best deals for the
council must have cost them tens of thousands of pounds per year. It’s also
a pretty shoddy way to transfer such an important asset with little or no
community involvement and has a whiff of paternalistic victorian
philanthropy about it.

On the positive side the suggested governance structure allows members of
the community to run the library pretty much as they see fit, there will be
one paid library manager, the library will be open twice as much as it was
and all he wants in return for his ‘gift’ of approx £20k PA from eco
computers is that the library becomes a drop off point for people to leave
old computers for him to recycle.

Although the deal has all but been done, the next few weeks will see
negotiations in which the all important details are finalised.

The question is - should we get involved in the final negotiations to
improve the deal and make it work for the community, let it happen but don't
support it or actively oppose it and try to stop the deal?

We intend to discuss this at 7pm All Saints Community Centre on Mon 11th
April as part of
http://www.facebook.com/l/a8e6cbpeTU8Ghq0VmT_QuWEmUDA/www.thefutureofnewcross.wordpress.com/

www.thefutureofnewcross.wordpress.com/<http://www.facebook.com/l/a8e6cbpeTU8Ghq0VmT_QuWEmUDA/www.thefutureofnewcross.wordpress.com/>

Apathy is Dead
http://www.flickr.com/photos/solarider/5254770064/#/photos/solarider/5254770064/lightbox/
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