Libraries are Vital for the Common Good: How do we campaign against cut-backs, closures and replacement by volunteeer libraries : Green Party conference meeting 8 June 2019

Libraries are Vital for the Common Good: How do we campaign against cut-backs, closures and replacement by volunteeer libraries : Green Party conference meeting 8 June 2019

 Video from Preston Rd Library campaign, Brent, London. url: https://youtu.be/ccHhvSypeQ4

Libraries are Vital for the Common Good: How do we campaign against cut-backs, closures and replacement by volunteeer libraries : Green Party conference meeting 8 June 2019. Martin Francis (Brent Green Party) introduction and messages from Library campaigns.Angela Thomson (SOLE-Save Our Libraries Essex),Questions & discussion url: https://youtu.be/h3shlmaUMlE
 Libraries are Vital for the Common Good: How do we campaign against cut-backs, closures and replacement by volunteer libraries : Green Party conference meeting 8 June 2019. Matt Smith (Save Sheffield Libraries) Questions and discussion chair : Martin Francis (Brent Green Party) url:https://youtu.be/rKrcnGPyIgY
 Libraries are Vital for the Common Good: How do we campaign against cut-backs, closures and replacement by volunteer libraries : Green Party conference meeting 8 June 2019. Becca Thackray and Pete Elliott (Lambeth Green Party Councillors), Questions and discussion. chair and Closing remarks : Martin Francis (Brent Green Party) url: https://youtu.be/9YWO4SCztr0

Letter in Brent Times: Consultation, Brent has just got it so wrong

Letter in Brent Times, 5 April 2012 edition, p. 16 [e-edition here] Transcript follows:

'Consultation: Brent has just got it so wrong'

Your lament, ‘Consultation means very little to Brent residents’ is right on the money (editorial, 29 March).

The Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, which has entries by language experts prioritised for their importance and usefulness, defines consultation as: “The act of discussing something with somebody or with a group of people before making a decision about it.”

Unfortunately, the Brent administration would have us believe that when the people would argue vociferously against their plans, it is instead because we wanted them all along but just didn’t realise it yet.

The people of Brent wanted to have half of their libraries closed but just sought to have the decision overturned at the High Court for the fun of it, not once but twice, right? Wrong.

The people of Brent wanted to build a £102.4 million HQ in Wembley at a cost of £4 million every year for at least 25 years, not including the cost of financing the debt, in order to mask job losses as “efficiency savings”, right? Wrong again.

The people of Brent want to demolish a perfectly usable, and popular, library centre in Willesden in order to allow a building contractor to profit from the sale of the flats they would build on it for a smaller library in return, right? Wrong again.

The people of Brent want to demolish the locally listed original Victorian library in Willesden, too, because they just can’t stand the few remaining bits of heritage that give character and soul to the borough, right? Wrong again.

Brent Council is so wrong, and wrong again, about consultation, that they would have us believe that we have been consulted when we know we haven’t because that is even less incredulous a proposition than that their plans could have been agreed to by any reasonable person.

As the Green candidate in the upcoming election, I will fight for the right of all electors to have meaningful input into political decisions carried out in their name. That includes calling a thing by its proper name.

This same dictionary defines doublespeak as, “language that is intended to make people believe something which is not true.”

Dr Shahrar Ali
Green Party London Assembly candidate for Brent and Harrow

Picture: Neasden Library boarded up (taken 16 October 2011)

Election Campaigning: Kensal Green, Queens Park & Barnhill

Greens were out in force at the weekend, both south and north in the borough. We met campaigners supervising the pop-up library outside Kensal Rise library on Bathurst Gardens (pictured above).

I spent an afternoon distributing literature in Chalkhill estate in Barnhill, a stone's throw from the Town Hall. My comrade, Martin Francis is pictured above catching up on local politics with local resident, Kathleen.

This was a warm afternoon and the locals were equally warm. There were a variety of cooking smells to be had around every street corner, always enticing us. People were going about their play and their neighbourly conversation, and engaging us at the earliest opporunity. I was particularly charmed by the kid writing a love poem for another on the street - it seemed to have landed on the pavement without a recipient, but the children were quick to identify its destination, with a little teasing for good measure.

Pictured (above) raised beds form part of a gardening project for the local primary school on the estate, bounded by the railway to one side.

Picture without an apparent owner in Victoria Road, Queens Park.

Where's the BEEF on Willesden Green Library Redevelopment? AKA Brent Executive Evaluative Fallacy

The Brent Executive meeting of 13 February 2012 was another dispiriting affair, especially for newcomers to the proceedings. The Willesden Green Library redevelopment proposal (preexisting old building fronting the newer buildling behind it, both earmarked for demolition, pictured) was again on the agenda following a successful motion to the Call-in and Overview Scrutiny committee to have it brought back (earlier posting).

Champions of all things educational, community-based and rationally accountable spoke out against the redevelopment proposal, not for the first time in the case of one speaker. Leader Ann John, chair of the meeting, promised the aggrieved champions at every opportunity that their questions would be answered once all their speeches had been heard.

Unfortunately, nothing could have been further from the truth. There is a kind of fallacy that Brent resorts to in such situations, which should be dubbed the Brent Executive Evaluative Fallacy (no BEEF) - answer a specific, highly targetted question, relating to facts on the ground, with an overgeneralised evaluative edict (also known as evasion, misdirection and ignoring). This fallacious strategy reached its low point when Cllr Crane, lead member for regeneration and major projects, addressed challenges about the lack of consultation over the project by answering, "There seems to be a misunderstanding about what is meant by consultation." The charge is that residents were trying to have it both ways, seeking a consultation when one wasn't really on offer and exepcting too much of a consultation when it was on offer (not today, but as a fait accompli time of their choosing). So it's Lose-Lose either way. The Exec weren't asking for your opinion in the first place, and when they do want it, they'll tell you what you really think but don't realise yet (stupid).

To the contrary, Cllr Crane and Executive members, the public gallery knew they weren't being listened to but ignored instead, no matter how much protestations to the contrary. I really felt for the champions who were experiencing their first taste of this regime. Their incredulity was matched only by my prediction that this would happen. The stronger the arguments against the proposal the greater the Exec's denial. It is no wonder that heckling ensued.

I asked champion Ishani Salpadoru for a copy of her speech for this blog, which I reproduce here. This gives a good flavour also of the brilliance of all the speeches that night:

Ishani Salpadoru (13/02/12): "One of the key weaknesses in the consultation process thus far has been the absence of, to quote the Council’s own webpages, ‘information materials written clearly and simply’ on the substance of the redevelopment project. ‘The Vision in Detail’ document produced by the Council offers nothing but platitudes and fluffy, uncontroversial aspirations. I think, for instance, we can all agree that a public building requires, again, I quote, ‘a clear and fully accessible entrance’. But that is plainly not what’s at stake in this redevelopment. Instead, the public needs a much more detailed and substantive account of the plans and how they were arrived at.

"Looking at the plans, it seems like the new cultural centre will cover less space than that the current complex. The plans state that the new complex will consist of 4,000 square metres. What does the current space measure? The Brent Museum has to be allocated the same space it currently occupies. How much of the space will be allocated to Council offices? Is the new Children’s Library being housed within the General ‘improved’ library or is it separate? How will the size of the space allocated to the new library compare with that of the current library? And once these areas are added up, how much space is actually left over for ‘flexible spaces in a range of sizes’? Will these be able to accommodate public meeting spaces as they do now, so important for local democracy? And what criteria have been used for the allocation of indoor space other than the Libaray and Museum?

"All these questions raise my fundamental concern about the process thus far: the fate of our Community amenity has been decided by the opinions of Brent’s three chosen property developers. The publicly-elected authority of the Council is being trumped by the private commercial interests of the developers who, logically enough, are presenting plans that will maximise their profits, not the requirements of the local community. In sum, there is a woeful dearth of facts and figures publicly available on a whole range of critical issues relating to this re-devlopment project:

"There is no evidence of feasibility studies with impartial input from a Quantity Surveyor and property valuation.

"We are simply expected to accept that, for financial reasons, agreed behind closed doors, there are no alternatives short of the wholesale demolition of the new and old libaries in order to rehabilitate our flawed but highly-valued Library centre.

"I, together with over a thousand other local residents who have thus far signed relevant epetitions, do not believe this to be the case. I expect a democratic Council to extend and publicise more effectively the consulation process, and fill in the huge gaps in the detail of these proposals before it steamrolls ahead with redevelopment agreement without backing of local residents."

Here's the Beef!

My colleague, Martin Francis, also at the meeting has posted 'Public frustration at lack of answers at Brent Executive' and 'A Guide to Brent Speak'.

Willesden Green Library Redevelopment

Local residents have set up a collaborative blog, Keep Willesden Green, in response to mounting concerns amongst residents about the regeneration plans for the area, in particular, redevelopment of Willesden Green Library Centre.

In a nutshell, the Council Executive of 16 January 2012 has already given the go-ahead for the modern Library Centre (fronted by the old Willesden Central Library pictured above) to be demolished and replaced by a new building, made viable only because the favoured contractor has been permitted to build residential housing on a substantial part of the land. I heard impassioned speeches against the project by local residents both at the Executive meeting and the subsequent Willesden area consultative forum of 18 January. At that forum, Leader Ann John dismissed appeals to save the historical old building, answering that it was right to have a "clear out" instead.

The decision is now to be examined by the Call-in and Overview Scrutiny Committee of Brent Council at the request of the Lib Dems. The meeting is on Wednesday February 1st (7.30pm Committee Room 1, Brent Town Hall). A detailed submission of criticisms against the original paper signed off by the Executive is available here.

Judging from past performance of this Council, the stronger the arguments the more likely they are to be ignored. Yet this submission comes from within the recall mechanism of the Council - maybe it has more leverage than impassioned speeches from members of the public?

Let's not resign ourselves to bad decision making in Brent Council. It does not have to be this way.

Navin Shah and Brent Library Campaign

My letter questioning Navin Shah's position on the local library closures and associated campaign to save them was published in this week's Brent Times (5 Jan 2012, Letters, p. 14). The position to which my comments were directed appeared on Mr Shah's website on 22 Nov 2011, 'Libraries are community hubs'. Another public affirmation of Mr Shah's position has since appeared here (6 Jan 2012). However, support for the local library campaign surely includes the key goal of over-turning Brent's closure decision - and the latest step in the legal battle means taking this to the Supreme Court (see my previous posting, 19 Dec 2011). Does Mr Shah support the campaign's aim to have this decision overturned? Support only for a contingency library facility, say, without proper public funding, is controversial for reasons of principle, precedent and strategy.

A transcript of my published letter appears below:

Unfortunately, Navin Shah finds himself in the awkward political situation of trying to distance himself from the decisions of his own party and to defend them at the same time in one of the boroughs which forms half of his GLA constituency.

In November 2011, writing on his website about the six library closures across Brent, Mr Shah says, “I’m not a Brent Councillor so as such have no powers or vote on Brent Council. Brent has been placed in an impossible position by the stringent cuts worth £60million next year alone imposed by the Tory and LibDem Government.”

Firstly, the position was not “impossible”. Nor was it inevitable. It was a political decision made in the Council chamber, specifically by the Brent Executive on 11 April 2011. That night we heard from dozens of petitioners. We heard from young, we heard from old – invariably eloquent and impassioned - exercising their speaking rights against the proposals, for two hours solid. Yet the Executive could not even bring themselves to raise their hands when voting for the Library Decimation Smokescreen, which they have the gall to describe as a “Transformation Project”.

Secondly, if the safeguarding of our local libraries does not count as a “frontline service”, that Mr Shah claims to want to defend, then what does? Young and old alike are being deprived of access to essential educational resources – and those harmed include some of the most disadvantaged in our community, looking to improve their lifechances. Nor is the erection of a new Brent HQ in Wembley at a cost of £102.4million worth foregoing frontline services for.

No, compare Brent Council’s reckless disregard for the People of Brent, continued in the Courts, to the commitment shown by Southwark Council. Southwark also had exactly 12 libraries, but instead of decimating them to six, they have just opened a new facility in Canada Water to bring their complement up to 13. Shame on Brent Council!

I can understand the embarrassment of Mr Shah’s political situation. But make no mistake, the decimation of our libraries is happening on his patch, and I think we do deserve a proper condemnation of it from him; instead of misplaced loyalty to his party and trying to pass the buck only to the Coalition government.

Shahrar Ali
Green Party London Assembly candidate for Brent and Harrow
PO Box 54785
London NW9 1FL

Picture top: part of Preston Library Wall of Shame on 7 Nov 2011 (since dismantled, see Wembley Matters).

Brent Libraries Decimation Smokescreen: The Fight Continues

On 19 December 2011, the People of Brent lost their Appeal in the High Court against Brent Council in their determination to see half of the borough's libraries returned to use (previous postings).

The Judge almost whisphered his verdict. Public speaking training may be required, or maybe this is the accepted technique for swallowing words for conclusions which don't follow from the arguments presented? I collected a copy of the Judgment (since available on-line) so I could convince myself that he hadn't misread the conclusion. Indeed, two of the three judges say in the report that they "would dismiss this appeal" and the third says he agreed for reasons given by the first two. However, as an example of the kind of bizarre logic presented in the Judgment:

"So that is the real question: whether the council did have due regard. This has to be decided as a matter of substance, not form. Thus in any particular case it is not necessarily fatal if there is no EIA [equalities impact assessment]; and likewise it is not necessarily conclusive if there is an EIA." (LJ Davis, para 92)

But this is to set out, in form [sic.], that an insubstantial EIA - ie. none - will not count against a consideration of whether due regard has been taken with respect to section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 (in particular, as this relates to indirect racial discrimination of a community disproportionately affected by the closures). Doesn't deployment of this bizarre substance/form distinction beg the question about what weight is to be given to such an EIA, particularly when the Appelants have contended that the Council has paid insufficient regard to its duties under the Equality Act?

The library campaigners congregated in the corridor outside to hear from their solicitor, John Halford of Bindmans LLP (pictured, with papers). He gave an account of what happened and articulated options for the campaigners to consider. An emergency motion was moved by the campaigners to continue the fight in the Supreme court and to instruct their solicitors, in the first instance, to prepare a petition to have the case heard there. I also felt as though our solicitors had public interest in their sights and the requisite, and reassuring, level of impassioned commitment to the cause - without this clouding their judgment.

The campaigners' solicitor, John Halford, of Bindmans LLP said today:

"Today's Court of Appeal ruling is very difficult to reconcile with what Parliament intended when it enacted the equality duty that obliges Brent, and all other local authorities, to properly grapple with the impact withdrawal of local services of this kind has on communities. The Court of Appeal appears to accept that there is a risk of indirect discrimination against significant numbers of people in Brent resulting from its plans to impose devastating cuts on local library services, but it has excused the Council from properly taking that risk into account before deciding to make those cuts. Our position is that this is simply wrong in principle. If the Supreme Court is willing to hear this case, we anticipate the outcome being very different."

Dr Shahrar Ali, Green Party London Assembly candidate for Brent and Harrow said:

"This is another sad day for the People of Brent in their collective aim to get the Libraries' Decimation Smokescreen exposed for what it is. In an unconscionable raid on some of our few remaining community spaces, the Council would deprive its people of the best part of their educational resources and have the audacity to pretend that we simply don't understand that this is really for our own good! The People of Brent will not stand for it; we will prevail in the Courts the third time!"

My colleague Martin Francis is posting at Wembley Matters.

Bus 302: Destination Unknown

The Destination of this Bus has been Changed: Please listen for further announcements? But the destination of this bus no longer exists. Neasden Library was boarded up by Brent Council on 13 Oct 2011. The Green Party continues to fight alongside local campaigners to have this situation reversed, and for the change of destination of this bus thereby rendered meaningful.

Brent Fightback, Brent Takeback: People's Assembly

Brent Fightback organised an excellent public meeting on 12 November 2011, pictured, at the Harlesden Methodist Church, Harlesden. Attendance picked up throughout the day, with elected representatives (ahem) the most patchy. We saw Cllr Butt and former MP Dawn Butler in the audience only at the beginning and Lee Jasper did not show for his billed contribution to the opening speeches.

The second hour was given over to a workshop, in which local people got a chance to introduce themselves to one another (split into two groups) and to voice their fears and (ocassionally) hopes. Alas mobilisation against savage cuts - whether the local libraries, forthcoming caps on housing benefit, the threat to local nurseries - were recurrent themes. In our workshop we had a good debate addressing questions such as 1. Were not the voters partly to blame for electing their councillors in the first place, even though they now felt betrayed by them? 2. Did local councillors really have their hands tied by the national coalition, as some councillors present were claiming? 3. What was the proper role of voluntary, grassroots-led initatives either as a means of redirecting political energy into something seemingly more fruitful or in its own right? Leroy Simpson, chair of Harlesden Town Team spoke eloquently about the need to engage youth, in particular, through a can-do attitude. Some voiced concerns about the danger of letting our elected off the hook by such means and I entered in a plea that the two approaches were not necessarily exclusive - and that we certainly must continue to challenge the politicians who failed us, and to mount political alternatives through that route. After all, we were being taxed, locally and nationally, not to have to pay for everything all over again, let alone to have our politicians frustrate our lifechances.

The closing session (pictured above) was a Question Time-style debate. The chair was flanked by two Labour councillors to one side, and two anti-cuts campaigners to the other. Janice Long (Harlesden), Jim Moher (Fryent) and Lesley Jones (substituting for Cllr Moher towards the end) were questioned on topics ranging from political accountability, libraries cuts, the unaffordability of the new civic centre, loss of a local community centre, loss of anticipated housing benefit leading to foricible eviction, and depletion of mental health services. Sarah Cox and Pete Firmin added their criticism, and sometimes disdain, to that of a well-informed audience.

To my own question, What is the cost of financing the debt on the £102.4m headquarters over 25 years?, Cllr Moher answered £25m. But how is that £25m going to be found, if not through cuts elsewhere, year on year? All this, in addition to the increased expenditure on a captial project, which could hardly be met by the savings of co-locating council buildings alone.

Cllr Long had a tough time persuading the masses that if they did not implement the cuts agenda (going so far as outlining the scenarios they were encouraged to plan for at away-days), then they would simply be imposed upon us by unelected bureaucrats. Was it as though the Labour administration had spent sleepness nights tormenting themselves over how they could not avoid axeing half of the borough's libraries? It didn't look like they could have acted any less responsibly, or done more to damage the lifechances of young and old of our community, had they tried.

Of course, one has to thank the councillors who did take the trouble to attempt to justify themselves. Yet the music that they faced was not as inveitable as they might like to suppose.

I was left reflecting on the concern of one delegate that the Brent anti-cuts campaign could have been called something more positive. Some already responded that nothing less affirmative than a fight was required, and that it was not of our choosing. I think this is right, but that does not mean that Brent Fightback is not other things besides. Brent Fightback is also: Brent Comeback. Brent Blowback. Brent Takeback. We need to take back what rightly belongs to us, including our local democracy. Take Ownership.

Other reports: Martin Francis on Wembley Matters.

Brent Local Libraries: Coverage in Harrow Times

'Protestors 'defiant' at Library closure march', Harrow Times, 10 Nov 2011 edition, p. 8 (on-line version).

'We must fight this assault', Letters, Harrow Times, 3 Nov 2011.

Further on-line coverage: 'Brent Council Chief apologises over Library distance claims', london24.com, 9 Nov.

Brent Library Campaigners March One Step Forward: Brent Council Two Steps Back

On Saturday 5 Nov 2011, I joined the library campaigners' march from South Kenton station to Preston library. This first pic shows us congregrating at the start.

Bringing up the rear along Carlton Avenue East.

Child donning placard "Labour isn't Learning".

"Los Indignados De Brent". Recognition of the movement in Spain before us.

Converging on Democracy Wall (as my colleague Martin Francis has dubbed it), or the Wall of Shame (as another has said), the march went on to Kingsbury library.

Still another 1.6 miles to the nearest local library (Kingsbury), says poster on Wall.

Brent Council is building a £102 million Civic Centre, £3m of which will go on a new library (below). Never mind the redundancies from six local libraries or the 25 years of debt this incurs.

Dr Shahrar Ali, Green Party GLA candidate for Brent and Harrow said: "Young and old, local and borough-wide, political and politicised came together this afternoon to march to Preston library and beyond. We were united in our abhorrence of these closures and defiant in our common goal to see them reinstated."

Further reporting on Wembley Matters.

Letter of the Week in Brent Times: Impact of Library Closures is felt by Community Now

Letter by Shahrar Ali, 'Impact of Library Closures is felt by Community Now', 3 Nov 2011.

Letter of the Week in Brent Times: The People of Brent will Prevail over Libraries

Letter by Shahrar Ali, "Councillors have lost the confidence of the People", Brent Times, 20 Oct 2011.

Important Notice: Brent Unapologetic about Work on Headquarters at Cost of £102,457,370.00

Brent Civic Centre, Engineers Way, Wembley. Projected Cost = £102,457,370.00. Green Party Freedom of Information Request, information supplied 27 September 2011. (Background)

Wembley Point, a conveniently located and cost-effective alternative for co-locating Council offices?

Important Notice: Brent "Apologises for Any Inconvenience Caused" by Closure of Cricklewood Library

Cricklewood Library, 152 Olive Road, 16 October 2011. 48,786 visits in 2009/10 at cost of £183,700.

Front door.

"SAVE THE LIBERY NOW! We love reading"

Local residents (with permission).

Important Notice: Brent "Apologises for Any Inconvenience Caused" by Closure of Kensal Rise Library

Kensal Rise Library, Bathurst Gardens, 15 October 2011. 45,755 visits in 2009/10 at cost of £186,100.

Kensal Rise Community Library. Information for Users.

Important Notice: Brent "Apologises for Any Inconvenience Caused" by Closure of Neasden Library

Brent Council: "We apologise for any inconvenience caused."

Neasden Library, 277 Neasden Lane, 16 October 2011. 117, 604 visits in 2009/10 at cost of £238,000.

Brent working with Tesco to make a difference.

Brent approves planning permission for Tescos directly opposite Neasden Library, in spite of negative impact on local grocers.

Important Notice: Brent "Apologises for Any Inconvenience Caused" by Closure of Tokyngton Library

Tokyngton Library, Monks Park, Wembley, 16 October 2011. 46,990 visits in 2009/10 at cost of £189,990.

Important Notice: Brent "Apologises for Any Inconvenience Caused" by Closure of Barham Park Library

Important Notice Brent Council: "We apologise for any inconvenience caused."

Barham Park Library, 660 Harrow Road, Sudbury, 16 October 2011. 62,507 visits in 2009/10 at cost of £179,740.

Important Notice: Brent "Apologises for Any Inconvenience Caused" by Closure of Preston Library

Preston Library, Carlton Avenue East, Wembley, 16 October 2011. 95,591 visits in 2009/10 at cost of £176,000.
"Brent! You are interfering in the assimilation of knowledge & learning of the next Generation"