A miracle or a clever conjuring trick?

Camden’s Labour party are this weekend rather naively claiming that their “local action teams” have won a fantastic victory in the battle to save Camden’s libraries. Or is it really a victory? Perhaps they should check their facts - on a closer look this self-proclaimed miracle may simply turn out to be a clever conjuring trick!

After months of talking and costly consultations (which only proved what everyone already knew – no-one wants libraries closed) a paper on the future of Camden’s libraries has been produced with a flourish – like a rabbit out of a hat! Abracadra!

Top line - - no-one’s local library will be closed tomorrow, next week or even next month, but maybe next year or …? This sleight of hand has allowed the Labour Council to claim they have listened to residents and are NOT closing your local library! They have even produced leaflets to claim it is all due to them and are briefly basking in the sunshine of what they hope will be widespread public approval.

But hang on a minute – like all conjuring tricks – it is the quickness of the hand that deceives – there’s a great deal up the sleeve. What can be spotted behind the hype and spin is that at least five libraries will not exist in the long term as they do today whilst several more are only hanging on in there on a temporary basis.

Clearly the long term agenda of cutting down Camden’s library service by 50% is still on the cards but instead of taking the way of sudden death, this will be a creeping extermination. Not with a bang but a whimper! This is obviously the intention – maybe a gullible public, battle -scarred and existing on false hope will finally give up their protests. In which case the opposition will simply dwindle away. Or will it? We suspect they are underestimating the strength of will and the long memory of Camden’s residents and will live to regret their false promises and clever tricks.

Just in case anyone might think we are being cynical - this is the fallout:

From 2012 Camden will be withdrawing from the provision of a public library service in 3 areas of the Borough – Chalk Farm, Hampstead and Belsize. They will allocate “transitional funding” to enable local volunteer groups to see if they can manage to run their own library.

The mobile library will be killed off and the premises they share with Highgate Library may be reallocated for some (unspecified) joint provision.

Regents Park Library will be closed and replaced by what sounds like a Homework/study centre.

Camden’s celebrated archives will be disappear from Holborn Library and may be jointly sourced with some other archive.

This leaves Holborn unviable and the building is scheduled for redevelopment with no hint as to its future. The same applies to Camden Town library in the Crowndale building while St Pancras will move to the new Kings Cross site.

So no closures? Camden’s residents could eventually be left, if the volunteer libraries fail, with libraries only in Swiss Cottage, West Hampstead (for the time being) Kilburn (which also largely serves Brent and Westminster,) Queens Crescent, Kentish Town and a new St Pancras (Six left out of thirteen).

These remaining libraries will have 10% fewer hours, 25% fewer new books and under current proposals, there will be a loss of at least 45 staff.

Not a happy future! And a somewhat Pyrrhic victory. But heighho – no closures this week as a rather bedraggled rabbit comes out of a very shiny hat!

The NHS surgery on our doorstep where you can't register

I've been doing some digging on a fairly new NHS surgery that Camden residents can't sign up to - but can use their very generous opening hours for a walk in centre.

The Cricklewood Health Centre is located just behind Somerfield on the corner of Cricklewood Broadway and Cricklewood Lane. Although its not quite in Camden, its very well located for many Fortune Green residents. The only problem is that Camden residents aren't able to register there - Brent residents are also barred. The centre couldn't be much more conveniently located for the three borough's that see Cricklewood as an important local hub - but only residents ofBarnet can actually sign up.

I spoke to a very helpful lady on reception today and clearly she spends a lot of time explaining to frustrated people that many of the can't register with the doctor. I'll be taking up this issue with Barnet PCT to see what can be done. Watch this space.

However, the good news is that as well as a normal surgery, Cricklewood Health Centre also operates as an NHS walk-in centre. The services offered here are open to anyone living in the UK - so people in Fortune Green (and much further afield) can use it.

What's more, the walk-in centre's opening hours are very generous. 8:00am till 8:00pm 7 days a week! (However, its recommended you get there by about 6:30pm to guarantee being seen that day.) You might not be seen immediately, but I'm told that waits over an hour are rare.

The Walk-in centre will do many of the things that a doctors surgery will normally do and will also look at minor injuries - see this link for a more detailed description. However, they can't refer you to a hospital, and they won't do tests that need you to come back to collect them (eg blood and urine tests).

So the Cricklewood Health Centre might be very useful people to many people in Camden if they knew about it - and I'm following up what can be done to make it more useful still. There will be updates!

Celebrations

There have been several celebrations recently - including the street parties in West Hampstead & Fortune Green on the day of the Royal Wedding. Lymington Road had a big "do" with a bouncy castle and a fire engine which was attended by Cllr Keith Moffitt, there was another in Glenbrook Road and, in Fortune Green Road, one in the "MARA area" in Menelik Road. Nancy Jirira and Flick Rea were there to see the fun and enjoy the sunshine.

Many congratulations and thanks to all those who organised these community events!

Library wars

Well - the consultation ended and we have now had the results - guess what ? All those thousands of pounds to consultants and we learn - wait for it - people love libraries! Reluctantly obviously people have stated they would prefer cuts in opening hours to library closures. However, there would have to be an approximate 50% reduction plus a lot of other cuts to make up the shortfall. The Labour Council are between a rock and a hard place here - how they will decide, we shall have to wait till June to see!

Meanwhile Labour Councillors refused to pledge no library closures when the Lib Dems called for a special Council Meeting to put this forward as a motion. They turned our motion into a pledge not to "privatise" them which was hardly on anyone's agenda and was somewhat of a red herring.

Here is our press release:
Commenting on Wednesday night's extraordinary council meeting, at which Labour voted down a motion ruling out local library closures, Camden Liberal Democrat Leader Councillor Keith Moffitt said: "It is sad day for libraries in Camden when the ruling Labour party refuses to vote for a motion ruling out closures. We were right to call this meeting, so that all local councillors could discuss such a critical issue for the borough. But library supporters wanted more than just warm words: they wanted their councillors to vote against closures. The huge number of local residents who gave up an evening to sit in the public galleries shows just how passionately people in Camden feel about their libraries. We will continue to represent their views in the Town Hall and will not give up the fight to get Labour to rule out all library closures in Camden."

Liberal Democrat Libraries Spokesperson Councillor Flick Rea, who co-sponsored the motion, added: "Libraries are the heart and soul of our community, loved by young and old alike. If our local libraries are boarded up they will be lost forever. We must keep all of Camden's thirteen excellent libraries open!"

The extraordinary council meeting held on 27th April considered the following motion tabled by Liberal Democrat Leader Cllr Keith Moffitt and seconded by Liberal Democrat Culture Spokesperson Cllr Flick Rea:
" This Council, recognising the value of the library service to the people of Camden and the high esteem in which it is held, resolves that any proposed service changes should not include any closure of the 13 libraries within the borough, and further resolves to explore in depth any reasonable alternative cost-saving measures in partnership with local residents, library users, library staff and voluntary groups."

Labour voted to amend the motion so that it no longer ruled out library closures. ENDS