Sunday 5 February 2012

No space for community to meet at Willesden Cultural Centre hub

No space for meetings like this
 For decades community activists have been able to hire rooms at Willesden Green Library Centre for public meetings. They have been used by campaigns to hold hustings at election times, rallied local people opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, examined issues such as Climate Change and Palestine and discussed the cuts the Coalition and Council have been making.  Our local MPs Sarah Teather and Barry Gardiner have both spoken at public meetings at the Library Centre.


Sarah Teather MP at a Willesden Green library Centre public meeting
The meeting rooms have been part of the lifeblood of local democracy. However the plans for the new Cultural Centre appear to exclude any such provision. The 'community hub' has no community meeting rooms.Not so much a plot as the Council seeming unaware that their actions continue to undermine respect for local democracy: skewed consultations, poor information and now no place to meet to give local people a voice.

It looks as if we shall have to make the 'Rising Sun' public house our community hub!



FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS 
Extract:

What will the new cultural centre include?
The new cultural centre, designed by the award winning architects AMHH Architects will incorporate:
General Library, Children’s Library, Customer Contact Centre, Museum,Special Exhibition Gallery, Education Room, Community Gallery Archive, Climate Controlled Archive Store, Foyer/Reception, Café,  Three Creative Cluster Spaces which will be fitted out to facilitate an array of artist and cultural programming,
Data Centre, Confidential Conference Room Public, Toilets, Office Space


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder how many of our councillors are Common Purpose graduates? That would explain things!..They don't want people meeting and discussing stuff.
Leave the library as it is. We don't need a so called "cultural centre".

Anonymous said...

This is ridiculous. Meetings at Willesden Green Library have been the mainstay of community and political groups of all persuasions. Losing these rooms further undermines local democracy - or is that what they want....