Saturday, 15 October 2011

Warm welcome at Kensal Rise vigil

The 'Community Library' outside our closed down library
 I've just been down to Kensal Rise Library where people are keeping vigil in the warm sunshine to stop Brent Council boarding up the building. The atmosphere was friendly with passers-by stopping to have a chat and telling us how they value the library and appreciate the campaigners' efforts. Passing cars tooted in support.

Children finished off some of their home made posters and paraded up and down with placards. Adults brought books to add to the outdoor community library that has sprung up and others browsed to borrow books.

As I talked to campaigners  it became clear that beneath the friendliness and spontaneous laughter, there was a steely determination.

Support is still needed with the next danger point at 5.45am on Monday morning, although everyone is prepared for sneaky action by Brent Council at another time. The Council has employed security guards around the clock to be positioned at the library, ostensibly to prevent any damage, but really to call the police if there is any sign of an attempt to occupy the building.

If you can offer any support at all go down to Kensal Rise and you'll be sure of a warm welcome - particularly if you can join the overnight shift.




"Burly contractors" seen off at Kensal Rise

From the Spectator:

A thoroughly English affair
15 October 2011
An air of calm pervaded outside Kensal Rise Library yesterday afternoon, following the dramas of the early morning. Contractors arrived at 6am to board up the building after a court yesterday decided that Labour controlled Brent Council could close six libraries as part of its austerity agenda. They discovered two people standing guard outside the front door, who immediately stood-to and stopped the contractors from carrying out their task. The same scene was repeated at 8am, when a posse of locals descended to defy council workers. They were bolstered by a phalanx of 140 or so primary school children from the nearby Princess Frederica CofE school, dragooned into action by their parents. The burly contractors slunk off with their chip-board and haven’t been seen since.

The mood was quietly upbeat when I arrived just after midday. The sun was shining, the streets were sleepy and there was fruitcake to eat. The few vehicles that passed through this residential road sounded their horns in solidarity. Local types stopped for a natter. All in all, Nora Batty wouldn’t have looked out of place, so delightfully English was the setting.

Rachel and Pam were on guard duty, and they were being unofficially chaperoned by Paul Lorber, a Lib Dem councillor in Brent who is involved with Save Kensal Rise Library! He told me that 60 local people have volunteered to protect the building 24 hours a day until such time as the council relents. Those same people have also pledged to help run the library in future.

The group striving to save Kensal Rise Library has captured public imagination over the last year; they have been the subject of newspaper columns and television programmes. Next week, a troupe of comics, including Rob Ince, Alexei Sayle and Phil Jupitus, will perform a cabaret to raise money for the possible appeal against yesterday’s court judgment.

With such support, the Save Kensal Rise Library! remains fairly confident of ultimate victory. Rachel and Pam both said that they would remain vigilant, but expected the council to stay away this weekend because apparently Brent's estates officer, Richard Barrett, has said that the council will negotiate a settlement with the campaigners. Barrett was unavailable for comment this afternoon.

There will be changes to the elegant red brick building if the group succeeds. Currently, the library only occupies the ground floor. The first floor is used a reading room, but campaigners intend to invite Into University — a charity that encourages wider access to higher education, which operates out of a local church at present — to take over the floor in order to share the burden of costs.

There is, however, one complication. The site is owned by All Souls College Oxford, who leased the building out in 1899 on condition that it is always used as a library. It is not clear how Brent Council’s policies, the recent court judgments and the campaigners’ plans will be affected by All Souls' rights to the building. The college’s Estates Bursar has been in London today and is believed to have met or spoken to representatives from Brent Council and Margaret Bailey, the leader of Save Kensal Rise Library! All Souls has refused to comment on the case.

Latest news from Kensal Rise campaigners - Camp out vigil continues - help needed

Outside Kensal Rise Library last night

Hi all,

Firstly thanks to everyone who has supported the vigil outside the library (especially all the brilliant kids).
This support has sent out a very important message about how much we care about what happens to our library and community and its significance has gone beyond our own neighbourhood.‬

‪Lots of library campaigners throughout England have been heartened by our actions and we have received loads of messages of support.‬

Great stuff Kensal Green and Kensal Rise.‬
As you may know our legal team are in the process of lodging an application to  appeal the decision handed down by Justice Ousley on Thursday. We should know the result of this application by next week (possibly Tuesday). We would like to maintain a presence outside the library until then, not only to prevent Brent boarding up the library but also because our presence is sending out a powerful message.‬
‪ ‬
‪We really do care about our library and how much it means to this community.‬
‪ ‬
‪So, we need your support. For the next few days we need your help in maintaining a presence at the library. We need you there during the day for whatever time you can spare.‬
‪ ‬
‪If you can be at the library from midnight to 5am that would be fantastic.  We have people taking over at 5am.‬
Of course you are welcome to come at any time but midnight to dawn is when we really need help. I know this is a big, big ask but it is only for a few days.‬

If you do intend to come make sure you wrap up warm. IT IS COLD. We have a tent. There will be company. You could bring your car.‬

Kind souls have been supplying us with coffee and biscuits and chocolate.‬
If you find that request irresistible see you at the library maybe?‬


Regards and thanks,‬
‪ ‬
‪Margaret Bailey

Great write-up of the events on the I spy in Queens Park blog.

Friday, 14 October 2011

Sorry for any inconvenience caused by us reducing your life chances....


I was taking a photograph of the sad sight of  the closed down Neasden Library this evening, usually a hive of activity on a Friday evening with a homework club in  session, students busy on computers and others borrowing books.

As I was taking the photographs a woman and her 15 year old daughter approached me.  They were coming to use the library and looked bewildered at finding it closed: "What has happened? Why is it closed?"

I explained Brent Council's decision to close half the borough's libraries. "But libraries are important. We need our libraries!"

I told them about the campaigns and the High Court decision.

"Are they mad? My daughter needs the library. I am on Income Support and we cannot afford the internet. Her homework says 'Use the internet to find out...'. We always come to this library. She needs it for books and her homework."

They examined the Council's notice.

"I can't send my daughter down to Willesden Green in the evening on her own. If I go with her I won't be able to pay the bus fare every night. I am on Income Support. She will get behind the other children who have internet at home."

I explained that previously the Council had understood these issues and that was why they had only recently invested money in refurbishing Neasden library and providing IT equipment and a homework club.

I told her that I had been one of the people campaigning and wrote this blog.

"You write down what I said. You tell them about me and my daughter."

So that is what I have done. I hope Brent Labour Party members think about about what she said at their Conference at Capital City Academy on Sunday afternoon. How many more people who don;'t read the local papers, or blogs such as this, will be standing bewildered in front of closed down libraries over the next few weeks?




Kensal Rise Defence Video

Maggie Gee- people will not be fooled by Ann John

From Guardian Books
    Kensal Rise library
    Kensal Rise library in north London. Photograph: Martin Godwin
    Brent council has been trying to shut Kensal Rise library down since the 1980s – and now a depressing piece of legalese is trying to help them on their way. The judgment delivered at the narrow, cold high court showed only the huge gap between the arcana of the judicial, bureaucratic mindset and the facts as seen by ordinary people: the library that generations of people in Brent have used, loved and paid their rates for is being stolen from us by a combination of our own Labour council and a coalition government that sits on its hands. Mark Twain, the great American writer who opened the library over a century ago, must be turning in his grave at Councillor Ann John's laughable statement that she is "pleased" because now Brent can "push ahead with our exciting plans to improve Brent's library service and offer a 21st-century service for the benefit of all our residents". Why is she excited by the thought of closing down half the libraries in a poor borough at a time when London's unemployment has hit a new high? Ordinary people all over the country will not be fooled. They know that closing libraries means that overstretched parents and childminders will no longer have a safe, warm place where they can take their small children after school. They know that teenagers with nowhere to study at home because the television is always on, or there are too many people in too few rooms, will no longer be able to sit down in quiet corners of a book-lined room and do their homework. They know that people who have lost their jobs, or never had a job, will no longer be able to come to a place where they need feel no shame and look up courses where they can learn or clubs they can join. They know that newcomers to the country will no longer be able to come in off our cold streets and read newspapers and magazines to learn the language, or find the whereabouts of colleges, clinics and schools. If libraries are allowed to close without a fight, how long will that other service that was once the envy of the world, the NHS, still survive? Oh, and the books. The stories that help us understand each other, the non-fiction that gives us the tools to survive in the world, the picture books that help toddlers make sense of themselves – are they to be only for rich people now? Brent's Labour council should hang their heads in shame.

Residents, including children, defend Kensal Rise library

Children outside Kensal Rise Library
Latest news on Kensal Rise library from the Harrow Observer:

KENSAL Rise Library is being protected by a crowd of passionate residents, some of whom stayed over night so that council workers could not board it up.

Around 100 people headed to the cherished Bathhurst Gardens building last night in a last ditch attempt to save it after a High Court ruling yesterday allowed the council to permanently close it, along with five others.
Residents started the peaceful protest at around 5pm, and soon found there was plenty of support from passers-by.

According to campaigners, council workers attempted to board up the building twice without success. Five protesters slept by the building all night to protect it, with council workers sleeping in a van nearby.
But the effort did not stop this morning. Residents are still protecting the library and intend to continue their efforts.

Protesters brought down boxes of books from their homes, saying that they were willing to 'continue the service' from outside.

Paula Gomez, the treasurer of the Brent SOS campaign, said: "It was all friendly, we were just trying to stop them from boarding up the library and that was very successful, there was a great atmosphere and everyone was cheering. They tried to board it up twice but we turned them away.

"We are bringing our own books to make sure the service continues outside, people have even been bringing back their books to return to the library. We are all very disappointed (about yesterday's High Court ruling) but this has really brought the community together, there are some pretty exceptional people here. We are just putting out the message that we want out services back."

Mrs Gomez said a lot of the protesters in the early evening were children, with many people walking past the powerful scene on their way back from work.

The six Brent libraries at the heart of the High Court ruling have already closed and will not re-open.
The Labour-run authority had shut the half a dozen branches - Barham Park, Cricklewood, Kensal Rise, Neasden, Preston and Tokyngton - in anticipation of the judgment being handed down in the case launched by Brent SOS Libraries.

Staff were briefed about the judgement and the council has now taken the decision to keep the doors locked permanently as they implement their delayed £1million saving plans with immediate effect.
Campaigners were denied the opportunity to appeal the judgement but are considering going to the Court of Appeal.

I Spy Queen's Park on libraries case

Excellent piece on library campaign and the High Court case on I Spy Queen's Park blog HERE