Kensal Rise Library application a baptism of fire for the new Planning Committee

The controversial planning application for the Kensal Rise Library development appears to be scheduled for the new Planning Committee on June 17th, despite the police not having yet reported on their investigation of fraudulent emails submitted on the previous application.

Planning officers are recommending that the committee grant consent 'subject to legal agreement'. What this means will become clearer when their full report is published a week before the meeting.

The new Planning Committee, which is supposed to operate independently of the Council and is not whipped, is chaired by newly elected Barnhill councillor, Sarah Marquis who is a lawyer.

This is the composition of the Committee which consists of 7 Labour and one Conservative councillor:

Sarah Marquis, Amer Agha, Shafique Choudhary, Lia Colacicco, Dan Filson, Orleen Hylton, Suresh Kansagra and Arshad Mahmood.

One issue that immediately strikes me is that the Standing Orders for the Committee LINK, approved as part of the constitutional changes adoped at Full Council, is whether a hearing on June 17th gives enough time for the training of new councillors on the Planning Committee that is now required. A good grounding would seem to be required in such a controversial and complex case.

The Declarations of Interest for new councillors have yet to be posted LINK

The full list of comments on the  planning application can be seen on the planning portal LINK

Meanwhile here are some of the comments which will give readers an idea of the issues involved.

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Support: I despair that this historic library, opened by Mark Twain, funded by public subscription; with help from Andrew Carnegie, fought for by so many in the community, and now designated a community asset, is to be carved up into a residential development for private profit, with token space set aside for its original use. If the choice is between nothing and something, then of course I support the Planning Application 14/0846 and FKRL as tenants of the space. But the ethics of the closure remain far from clear to me.

Support: Support for planning application 14/0846 I give my support re Planning Application 14/0846: 1. For D1 community library and space 2. For FKRL to be tenants of the space in the belief that this is the best practical way to use the Kensal Rise library building as a community asset. I hope the planning committee has more relevant information than me, and can better judge these issues: * Is a community library a practical, sustainable activity in the space envisaged? * Would the community get sufficient benefit from a library in the space envisaged to respect the "asset of community value" status? * Does the committee believe that the community could get better value from the building (that was funded by public subscription) in another way; i.e. that it should it reject the planning application or defer a decision until after the end of May when further funding options can be discussed? I await the decision and your reasons with interest

Objection: I object to the planning application 14/0846: 1) The application conflicts with the building's Asset of Community Value ("ACV") listing: The whole building is listed as an ACV. The applicant's/develper's plan for flats occupying almost the entire space within the building (less about 185sqm on the ground floor) conflicts with the requirement of the building's ACV listing for future non-ancillary community use. Were the applicant to succeed, most of the building's potential use as a future community facility would be lost to us forever, and in its place we would have the applicant's provision of an ancillary "D1 community space"; this contravenes the ACV requirement that future use of the building for the community be non-ancillary. 2) The impact on local employment and skills: The applicant's plan will damage the employment prospects of local people. In converting almost the whole building to residential use, the applicant is denying the future use of that space to local companies and organisations which could offer the learning of diverse skills not only to those they employ but those who would use their services; in contrast, the small space offered by the applicant cannot offer the same sustainable and diverse business, education, skills and employment opportunities to local people - and such a loss always affects poorer people most. I note that the Friends of Kensal Rise Library (FKRL) is the developer's "preferred bidder" for the space, however its model for financial sustainability is weak because it relies almost exclusively on volunteer support - this is because there is little space for it to generate revenue to run a library in the D1 space offered by the developer in this application. 3) Not much more D1 space than in developer's first rejected application on the building in August 2013: The D1 space offered now is little more than what was offered in the developer's first planning application when it was rejected by the planning officers on the grounds of insufficient D1 space. At that time, the developer offered D1 space partly in a basement and partly on the ground floor; as a percentage of total floor space available, the D1 space offered now isn't much more than what was offered then - in fact it's probably less because there is now less basement space in the developer's current application. Therefore, if the planning officers rejected the first application after having concluded that it conceded insufficient D1 space, then it only makes sense for the sake of consistency to reject the current application as well. 4) The police's current fraud investigation potentially exposes planning officers and committee to civil proceedings against them: Has the council considered the legal consequences to it of assigning residential status to any part of the building - and therefore immediately enriching the applicant - while there is an on-going police investigation into email and identity fraud around the applicant's support for his first application in August 2013? While the financial implications of assigning residential status to a currently D1-only building are not a matter for the planning officers and committee, the consequences of doing so while an investigation, which could possibly result in criminal charges, might be. 5) The D1 space is unattractive, small, and will not generate a sustained level of interest from the community because the space is too limited in what it can offer; it is essentially a narrow corridor separating two relatively small rooms - which will be small once essential public facilites such as toilets, staff room, and circulation are factored in. The proposed entrance to the D1 area is in a chimney flue, leaving the better and larger entrance for the few flat owners.

Support: This supporting comment is being submitted on behalf of the Kensal Triangle Residents Association. While,like everyone else, we deeply regret that the whole building is not to be saved for community use, as it was originally gifted to the local community, we consider that the FKRL who have worked tirelessly for the last four years have arrived at the best outcome which still retains a library on the site. We wish for the Friends of Kensal Rise Library to be the tenants of the space and to run the Library. Commenting on purely physical details, we agree with many others that the proposed entrance (through the existing chimney flue) creates a cramped space with poor flow, which will not help with optimisation of the space available: surely some way can be found of creating secure entrances to the flats and the Library through the existing main door.

Support: Time to Win the Peace? We have been involved in campaigns for Kensal Rise Library library since 1988, when the people occupied the building. Now is the turning point. Do we support the developer¿s planning application with the proviso that there be a rent-free space for community use on the ground floor whose preferred tenants are the Friends of Kensal Rise Library? For us the answer is a ¿Yes¿. We know and trust the Friends of Kensal Rise Library, who have fought so hard to save this building and who kept the Pop-up Library running in all weathers, a hard and unglamorous task. Thanks to their tireless negotiations with the developer and All Souls, the space offered has been increased to around two-thirds of the original space the library took up. No war ever achieves all its objectives. Ideally we would all like to keep the whole building for community use. But a moral victory is useless if there is no library at the end of it. The Friends and Trustees of Kensal Rise Library have taken the very difficult decision to support the planning application. After years of saying 'No' to an Oxford College, a Council and a developer, it is hard to say ¿Yes¿. But what were we fighting for? A library. Not an embattled plastic tent, brilliant as it was, but a warm, dry space where books, company and computers are free. A space where parents can bring young children, where older school children can do their home-work. The end-game was always a peace, not a war. My husband, the writer Nicholas Rankin, and I believe it is time to win the peace. It is an act of faith. But every library is an act of faith that when people work together, good things can happen that are not just about profit or advantage. We want Kensal Rise to have a real library back and we think the best chance of it now is to support the planning application.

PLEASE NOTE THAT BECAUSE OF PREVIOUS ILL-TEMPERED ANONYMOUS COMMENTS ON THIS ISSUE, WHICH AROUSED STRONG FEELINGS ON BOTH SIDES, I WILL ONLY PUBLISH COMMENTS WHICH INCLUDE THE NAME OF THE COMMENTER.