This letter has been sent to Brent Cabinet members prior to tonight's meeting.
Re:
Preston Community Library
Report for consideration at Cabinet meeting on
Tuesday 13th September 2016
I write
as chair of Brent SOS Libraries, an umbrella group supporting library campaigns
and community libraries across Brent. The contents of this email have been
approved by the four community library groups at Kensal Rise, Cricklewood,
Barham and Preston. I have been made aware of the report relating to
redevelopment of the Preston Library site, which I understand you are due to
consider at the cabinet meeting tomorrow, Tuesday 13th September 2016.
It is
well known that a clear pre-election promise was made at a public meeting on 7th May 2014, when the Brent
Labour Party promised to “offer the building at a peppercorn rent to
any local community group who can provide a sustainable community library...
that is our pledge. We will not open to competitive tender in order to give
preference to local groups.” You were present at that meeting and
supported that pledge.
Since
then, volunteers in Preston have worked extremely hard to set up and sustain a
community library in the building. Despite the constraints placed on them by
sharing the library building with local schools using it for overflow
classrooms, library volunteers in Preston have developed an amazing local
resource, which is providing valuable services to the community. As you
probably know, Preston Community Library is a registered charity. In addition
to providing books, study space, and computers with internet access (vital for
people who have no or limited computer or internet access at home), they also
run, among other things, ESOL classes, a film club, and writing projects for
children and young people.
Representatives
from Preston Community Library meet regularly with those from the other community
libraries setting up across Brent (Barham, Kensal Rise and Cricklewood), as
part of the umbrella group Brent SOS Libraries. In recognition of the
importance of our work, we have recently received a grant of £45,000 over two
years from the Council’s Voluntary Sector Initiative Fund for support and
development of services across the four libraries. We were one of eleven bids
from a total of 43 applications to be successful.
The four
community libraries have also started to work with the Brent Library Service
and we have met with them on several occasions this year. In July we were very
pleased to participate in the Culture Open Day at Willesden Green Library, an
event which we planned jointly with the Library Service. We look forward to
working more closely with the Library Service in the future.
In the
circumstances, I was most surprised to read the report prepared for the
Cabinet, which makes no reference to the pre-election promise. The proposals
contained in the report breach that promise by proposing open market tender and
a significant annual rent for community space. A community library is not going
to be able to pay the sorts of sums proposed. Libraries are not designed to be
profit making, they are providing a free service to the community. This is
understood at Kensal Rise and Cricklewood, where the libraries will only pay a
peppercorn rent. The hard work and goodwill of the many volunteers supporting
Preston Community Library, and the benefit that it provides, should not be
disregarded in this way.
Any
proposal for future use of the Preston Library site should honour your
pre-election promise and should recognise the value, including the social
value, of the work done by Preston Community Library. PCL should not be
subjected to an open market tender process and should not be required to pay
more than a peppercorn rent. If the site is to be redeveloped in some form, PCL
should be provided with space in the new development on the same basis, and you
should provide them with alternative accommodation whilst the site is being
redeveloped.
I look
forward to hearing from you.
Yours
sincerely,
Chair, Brent SOS Libraries
Chair of
Operations Group, Friends of Kensal Rise Library
