Users of the bookshare at Willesden Green tube station are reported to have gathered to try and reinstate it following removal due to alleged fire risk.
As spokeswoman for the voluntary Cricklewood Library told Wembley Matters:
Cricklewood Library set up the Willesden Green book share around 2017. It was maintained by campaigners and was immediately well received. When books are on the shelves Based on a conservative estimate of five people visiting the shelves over eight hours a day, approximately 15,000 visits to the shelves are made. This is a significant number.
Since the library opened in 2021 Cricklewood Library hasn't had the capacity to formally support the bookshare and it's taken on its own momentum. Donated books do get sent there if they aren't suitable for the library. The reason Friends of Cricklewood Library don't formally support the bookshare is that we are stretched to keep the library open for four days a week.
The issue of fire and safety in relation to the bookshare has been mentioned before and the books and shelves removed. However this was due to an individual with mental health problems and the shelves were reinstated.
You may have seen the article in the Standard LINK which talks about fire hazards. Willesden Green Station is not sub-surface and there are two exits. The bookshare shelves have suffered from damp and the books too, so they don't appear to be an obvious fire risk.
We are sad to see the well-established and well-loved bookshare dismantled with no notice to the community.
The official reasons for the removal have been published on Facebook:
The London Fire Brigade said legal regulations required TfL to remove book libraries from any subsurface Tube stations. It added non-subsurface stations had been asked to remove their libraries from public display until “correct fire safety plans” were in place.
TfL said it was working to see if the libraries could make a return to non-subsurface Tube stations in future, which would be allowed if measures to mitigate fire risks are taken.
All book libraries must be withdrawn from the premises and the contents removed from the station- they do not have any approvals from our Fire Safety Unit and our regulator the LFB, this means that currently they breach the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 and the Fire Precautions (Sub-surface Railways stations)(England) Regulations 2009, for example Article 7 (1) states
All parts of the station premises must be kept clear of combustible refuse or other combustible material
by failing to do this is likely to result in enforcement action from the LFB.
In addition to the above, I would add some safety justification behind the RRO and PRSSR statutory requirements.
- Combustible materials present a fire risk in a public space that is used as the means of escape in the stations.
- The fire risk mitigations that are in place to reduce fire and smoke spread in other rooms of the station are installed to provide safe evacuation for the occupants and are not present for the book libraries.
- The reason that detection, suppression and compartmentation isn’t mandated is that the public areas are to remain sterile and materials controlled to a strict standard.
- The books and the wooden cabinets are combustible and result in fire developing at a quick rate.
There does seem to be some hope that the bookshare could be restored to Willesden Green Station after review as it is a non-subsurface station, as the Cricklewood Library spokeswoman pointed out, and has two entrances.
After all, environmentally and educationally, it is much better to share and reuse books, rather than have them dumped in landfill, burned or left on the streets as flytipping.
