The Upper Norwood Library Campaign (with the support of the community) has served Croydon Council with a resolution to negotiate with Lambeth Council to secure the future of our library before the end of 2011. In view of the current crisis situation at Upper Norwood Joint Library, please do write to Cllr Mike Fisher, Leader of Croydon Council, to express your concerns.

This specimen letter below may assist you in composing your own. In addition to addressing the letter to Cllr Fisher, you may like to send copies to the names at the bottom of this page as well as to your local councillors.

Following Croydon Council’s recent decision to privatise its entire library service, CPCA has called a public meeting to provide an update on the situation and launch the next phase of the Library Campaign.

The meeting will be held on Wednesday 30th November, 7.30 pm at the Salvation Army Hall, Westow St. SE19.

The unilateral decision by Croydon Council to ‘terminate’ the Upper Norwood Library Joint Agreement was, according to Croydon, the direct consequence of  ‘…fundamental breach of the agreement by Lambeth Council’.  Such breach, according to Croydon, was the refusal by Lambeth Council ‘to attend the last Annual General Meeting and failing to co-operate at the 2010 meeting.’

Lambeth Council contend that it was in fact Croydon Council that breached requirements of the UNJL Agreement that each council should appoint two local ward councillors to the Library Committee, and that any disputes or disagreements should be referred for arbitration.

Croydon Council’s response was to despatch, without prior notification to Lambeth Council or the Library staff, nine council officers who announced they were taking ‘…interim management control.’ and conducting Health and Safety, Human Resources and Internal Finances Audit, despite the UNJL being an independent library and not part of Croydon or Lambeth’s Centralised Library Service. The UNJL’s independent status has enabled it to be 50% more efficient in cost terms, than Croydon and Lambeth’s library services.

Croydon have now given Lambeth three options.

1. Buy Croydon’s half share of all UNJL assets and accept responsibility for the UNJL.

2. Take a lease of Croydon’s half share in the premises and become solely responsible for the UNJL.

3. Agree that the library will be sold with the proceeds, after settlement of all costs, equally divided between the two boroughs.

Despite Croydon’s claimed support for the Upper Norwood Library, these options provide little reassurance for the future of the 111-year old Library. Following Croydon Council’s recent decision to privatise it’s entire library service, CPCA has called a public meeting to provide an update on the situation and launch the next phase of the Library Campaign.

The meeting will be held on Wednesday 30^th November, 7.30 pm at the Salvation Army Hall, Westow St. SE19.

Croydon Council’s continuing failure to meet the terms of their partnership agreement with Lambeth Council, caused yet another meeting of The Upper Norwood Joint Library Committee to be abandoned last Thursday, the 15 September, when more than seventy people attended the Library Annual General Meeting, where the future of the 111-year old Library was to be considered.

The meeting turned to farce when it became apparent that the Lambeth representatives had not turned up; concerned that their presence could be seen as legitimising Croydon’s repeated decision not to nominate two local councillors to the Committee. In a well rehearsed show of disingenuousness, Croydon Cabinet Member, Cllr Sara Bashford, speculated that, “..if they are stuck in traffic” they would let her know.

However, the CPCA has been made aware that, on the afternoon of the meeting, Lambeth Cabinet Member, Cllr Florence Nosegbe, telephoned Cllr Bashford to advise her that Lambeth members would not be attending as a consequence of Croydon’s continued refusal to appoint two local Croydon councillors to the Committee – a fundamental requirement of a 2006 amendment to the Joint Library agreement, agreed by both parties.

Attending, as a Library Committee member, was the ubiquitous Cllr Steve O’Connell, previously described by the press as the highest paid councillor in the country. In a preposterous statement of justification, Croydon Cabinet Member Cllr Sara Bashford referred to him as, “your elected GLA member” that “people in Upper Norwood have voted for”. However the Library Agreement makes no provision for such nomination, stating; “Furthermore at least two Members from each party should represent the Upper Norwood area and at least one should have some executive responsibility for libraries”.

Despite Croydon-produced evidence to the contrary, Cllr Bashford refused to accept the legality of the agreement and asked their legal officer, Solomon Agutu, to justify her stance. Mr Agutu said that “those who wish to challenge the legality of the Agreement should do it in the right place and not here” and he invited those who wished to contest Croydon’s position to do it “…through the courts.”

Note: CPCA and Library Campaign representatives recently met at Chambers with barrister, Professor William Rees who advised that any meeting of the Upper Norwood Joint Library Committee that did not satisfy all the requirements of the agreement would be unconstitutional and unlawful.

There are concerns at the prospect of a Joint Library Committee dominated by Croydon Cabinet Members – particularly when the latter chair the Joint Library Committee. The Committee chair holds a casting vote in the event of any deadlock or failure to agree on future Joint Library policy, possible cuts, or even closure of the service.

The current administration in Croydon have a history of misrepresenting the Joint Library’s value for money, as a means of justifying low levels of funding and the scrapping of the library’s popular independent status. Independent studies have shown that the Joint Library service is proportionately around 50% cheaper than the Croydon library service.

Croydon Council leader, Cllr Mike Fisher, knows that by meeting the terms of the Joint Library agreement he would be obliged to nominate two opposition members to the Committee. This would remove his ability to force through the sort of damaging measures that are being inflicted on Croydon’s own libraries, such as significant staff redundancies, reduced opening, privatisation or closure.

Next Thursday September 15th at 6.30pm, the future of our library service will be discussed at the Annual General Meeting of the Library Committee. The meeting is being held at the Library (39-41 Westow Hill, SE19).

The Upper Norwood Library continues to face an uncertain future with possible cuts, privatisation or even closure on the cards. We would ask all those who care about the future of our Library to attend the AGM.

Croydon Council in a clear breach of Croydon and Lambeth’s Joint Agreement have, for the second year running, nominated four Cabinet councillors from the far south of the borough to serve on the Joint Library Committee. This is a blatant breach in that the Agreement is clear that at least two nominated councillors from each borough must be from the Upper Norwood area.

Given the cabinet members’ wide range of commitments, how plausible is it that these councillors will have the slightest interest, local knowledge or time for the Upper Norwood Library? Croydon’s behaviour is yet another insult to the people of Crystal Palace and an affront to local democracy.

Upper Norwood Joint Library has been serving our local community for 111 years.

Make sure your voice is heard by attending this crucial AGM and don’t forget to tell your family, friends and neighbours.

This Library (the UNJL) is jointly funded by Croydon and Lambeth Councils. The current financial situation in both boroughs is not good. In Croydon, six of a total of thirteen libraries are threatened with closure. In Lambeth, two mobile libraries will be withdrawn next year (Croydon’s mobile library disappeared two years ago) and a public consultation will begin in April about the future of Lambeth’s libraries.

The Upper Norwood Library Campaign argue that this Library should not be closed, cut, nor subsumed into the library service of Croydon or Lambeth Council. Its funding history since the early 1980s has seen years of under-investment (by both boroughs in turn) and its budget for this year is carrying the equivalent of a 20% cut in ‘real-terms’. The Joint Library Agreement between Lambeth and Croydon obliges both boroughs to provide equal funding each year. Since 1983, this has happened only once.

With Bromley’s Anerley and Penge libraries facing the axe and two out of three Croydon libraries in the north of the borough under threat, it would be a disaster if funding for the UNJL was withdrawn. We remain concerned that Croydon Council are equivocal in their support and remember the numerous occasions where they have attempted to ‘take over’ the Joint Library. The Joint Library is the only remaining independent public library in this country and we want it to stay that way. We feel that it is better able to serve the needs of the Crystal Palace community because it is Crystal Palace’s library and not Croydon Council’s – nor for that matter, Lambeth Council’s.

Last year, Lambeth Councillor David Malone launched the Upper Norwood Joint Library Charter, which celebrated the continued independence of the Library under its Joint Library Agreement. The Charter was supported by every member of the Joint Library Management Committee – Labour and Conservative and was in turn, endorsed by the Leader of Croydon Council, Cllr Mike Fisher, who said “Croydon Councillors, just like their Lambeth counterparts, have already indicated their support for the Charter and I am happy to both endorse their actions and follow their lead.” 

Campaign members were appalled when, only three months later (and without any consultation with either the library staff or local residents), Cllr Fisher wrote to the Leader of Lambeth Council saying “We have looked at various options for reducing the cost of the (Joint) Library -potentially taking a different approach to how the service is delivered and how we can gain savings from it during 2011/12. An option for achieving this is that library services in Upper Norwood could be more economically operated by either Croydon or Lambeth, and integrated into a single borough-wide library service.” Having endorsed continued independence in March 2010, Cllr Fisher was thus performing a complete ‘volte-face’ in June.

A month later, Croydon Council issued a press release that advocated, “putting the library under the control of one of the two councils.” This initiative was justified by false and misleading financial and efficiency comparisons between the Joint Library and the Croydon library service – a similar smear to the one perpetrated by them in 2007.

Croydon alleged that the Joint Library “costs almost £100,000 a year more to operate than the average library” but neglected to make allowance for the fact that the Joint Library is a self-sufficient, ‘stand-alone’ library service that does not benefit from the expensive overheads, re-charges and support services of the Croydon library service. 

The whole, inclusive cost of the UNJL library service totalled £387,000 net in 2008-9, whilst the average cost of one of Croydon’s thirteen libraries in the same financial year was £606,607 net (excluding capital charges totalling a further £942,000). Because of shared funding with Lambeth, Croydon actually only paid £176,000 for the UNJL in 2008-9 – £430,000 less than the average cost of its own libraries. To us, this seems like a bargain, particularly bearing in mind that the Joint Library is around twice the size, or more, of most of Croydon’s libraries.

We see this as clear evidence that, unless they can dictate rigid terms (that we are sure are likely to be rejected by the residents of Upper Norwood), Croydon could withdraw from the Joint Library Agreement and bring about the closure of the UNJL.

We are also of the view that Croydon’s stance is more to do with a ‘control fixation’ than with value for money or ‘greater efficiency’. On any objective and impartial analysis, the Joint Library is much cheaper pro-rata, than Croydon’s own libraries and this fact has been confirmed by independent consultants (as well as Councillors from all three of the major political parties in Lambeth).

We are concerned that Croydon have consistently failed to deal with the UNJL and the library needs of the people and organisations of Crystal Palace, in a fair and objective way and that the present financial crisis may be used as a justification for further attacks on our unique, cost-effective and much-loved service. 

We would ask everybody who cares about our Library to be on their guard in the coming weeks. Councils will be finalising their budgets for 2011-12 during February and any further attempts to demean, undermine, cut, subsume or close our independent service must be met with swift and vigorous opposition.

The Joint Library has survived two World Wars, the Great Depression of the 1930s and numerous severe recessions since it first opened to the public in 1900. It provides opportunities for life-long learning, a brilliant Children’s Library that helps to create a love of books and reading in our kids from babies upwards, access to information and informal education, a fantastic programme of special events and activities each year and a free and welcoming space for the whole community to benefit from.

See the latest newsletter below. This is also available further down the page as a pdf file with earlier editions from our archive.

Newsletter Archive

All our newsletters will be available as a pdf  (opens in new window, or right click to save).

UNLC newsletter August 2010

Croydon and Lambeth candidates received the following letter from Joseph Figueira, Chair of the Upper Norwood Library Campaign

2010 COUNCIL ELECTIONS

Upper Norwood Joint Library has been an integral part of the local community of Crystal Palace, which spans 5 boroughs, and is now in its 110^th anniversary year. It is unique in being the only free independent jointly-funded public library in the country. It is managed by the Upper Norwood Joint Library Committee comprising councillors from both the parent Councils of Lambeth and Croydon, and community representatives, under a Joint Agreement that governs the funding basis for the library.

Thanks to the work of our Chief Librarian, Bradley Millington, and his staff, both past and present, our library stands in the vanguard of independence as an efficient and effective means of operating such a valued community service – a flagship model for both Lambeth and Croydon.

Upper Norwood residents are paying the same council tax as elsewhere in Lambeth and Croydon, and yet are not receiving the equivalent funding for their library. Evidence shows that funding from the parent authorities equates to two thirds of that of other libraries, whilst it performs double the work, out-classing all libraries in Lambeth and coming in second only to the Central Library in Croydon.  Without this, its service to the community is seriously compromised, the residents in this part of the boroughs are being unfairly short-changed, and there is a real danger of the library being threatened with closure.

Funding must at the very least be inflation linked, but ought rightly to match the level of funding as set out in the Chief Librarian’s business case.

The proposed new Upper Norwood Joint Library Charter is a breath of fresh air, intended to “serve primarily as a reaffirmation of the principles and traditions that have guided and sustained the UNJLA since its inception” but also to unblock the impasse and get everyone working together for common aims and purposes without distracting interference.

I am writing to you on behalf of the Upper Norwood Library Campaign committee and its members to request that you make specific pledges about the policies your party will pursue if it, either alone or in a coalition with another party, controls Croydon council following the 2010 elections.

 
We ask that you commit yourself to the following:

1.  to the continuation of independent status
2.  to fully support and bring about the demands of the Charter
3.  to remedy the unsatisfactory financial situation by guaranteed provision of revenue funding that is at least linked to inflation but preferably aligned to the business case
4.  to address the poor and unfair deal meted out to Upper Norwood residents with regard to the council tax apportionment to the library facility
5.  to maintain all of the current standard of service and facilities and improve upon them, through funding, encouragement, and all practical measures as necessary
6.  to work in a politically unbiased spirit of co-operation 

Our concern is to safeguard a positive future for this library, thereby improving the prospects of those of all ages who use it, and the sense of identity and pride in all members of the community. We hope you will pay more than lip-service and stand firmly for the very real attributes, benefits and good value the library provides to its community and which will in turn reflect in local esteem to the Council.

I would like to hear from you soon with your party’s commitment to the above. In any event we would be pleased to explain our reasoning and to discuss them with you.

Yours sincerely

Joseph Figueira

Chair

Residents needed little encouragement to sign the petition to save Upper Norwood Library from closure. Indeed, people are very upset to think there may be some reduction in service at the library.

On Monday 23 April Cllr Pat Ryan presented a petition of 3,721 names demanding that Croydon Council restores the promised funding contribution to an equal amount to that provided by Lambeth Council, and then continues to fund at the level needed to secure Upper Norwood Joint Library’s future for the long term, to the Full Council Committee meeting at Croydon Town Hall. The Campaign was out in force in the public gallery and cheered as the petition was presented and Councillor Ryan pleaded the case. He said: “The library has been strangled by financial constraint. It’s absolutely disgraceful. If the situation doesn’t change, two full time members of staff will be made redundant and there will be a 30 per cent reduction in operating hours.” Leader of Croydon Council, Councillor Mike Fisher, accused Lambeth Council of “playing games” and that new financial arrangements needed to be put in place at a level both authorities could afford.

Malcolm Wicks, MP for Croydon North, visits the Library
 and lends his full support by signing the Petition

Cllr Pat Ryan and Val Shawcross petition outside the Library