Apologies for our absence. In the first week of November we began to encounter serious problems when sending out mass mailings of emails. They kept bouncing back as spam. After days of panic and confusion, one of the Friends came to our rescue. Margaret Burr researched MailChimp for us and imported the email addresses over. She is also using her excellent organisations skills to help us to sort out and make more effective our use of the
address. We want to say a deep felt thank you Margaret as it was not until this problem occurred that we realised that without email we are nothing! The problems with our email account started during a period when there was a lot happening, so this News Update is a little longer than usual but includes the Rally at the Civic Centre, Labour Party Motion, the garden and the intriguing Door to Nowhere.
Please put February 27 2016, the date of the Library Consultation we are planning, in your diary!
Jasmin Taylor, Chair, Friends of Marcus Garvey Library
Haringey Council’s Original Brief to Frankham’s, the Architects
In October, the Friends of Marcus Garvey Library submitted a Freedom of Information request to Haringey Council in order to obtain a copy of the original design brief submitted by the Council to Frankham’s the architects. We had been asking for this for some time, but it was only through the FOI request that we were able to force the Council to hand over this information.
The question we asked Haringey Council was “Please supply a copy of the brief sent to the Frankham Consultancy Group in respect of the redevelopment of Marcus Garvey Library. (If more than one brief, then the final and most detailed brief).” To download a copy of the brief go to:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/haringey_council_brief_to_frankh
A copy of the brief is also included as an attachment to this email.
The design brief reveals the Council’s total lack of transparency with respect to their conduct over the Marcus Garvey Library.
Firstly, the brief was submitted to the architects six months before the March 17 2015 report came into the public domain. The brief puts paid to any idea that the Council considered any alternative sites for the relocation of Apex House staff, as they claimedthey had done in the original March 17 report. The brief makes it clear that it is just nonsense that the insertion of the Customer Service Centre into the library was meant to be for the benefit of library users. The title tells it all; Apex House Service Relocation: Feasibility to Adaptations to Marcus Garvey Library, Design Brief, September 2014 Page five of the brief clearly states that “…given the time pressures to vacate Apex House…Haringey Council intends to undertake adaptations to Marcus Garvey Library to allow Customer Services and Housing Advice and Options to relocate their Frontline service from Apex House to Marcus Garvey Library together with sufficient back office staff to support this service and retain a full functioning library.” Of further interest is the fact that the insertion of a Customer Services Centre was originally meant to be an interim arrangement and also that 120 staff were intended to be transferred over and located on the top floor of the library. The idea that 120 staff could be fitted into the top floor of the library shows that whoever wrote this brief had never actually visited the library, was living in cloud cuckoo land or was expecting the staff in Apex House to go on a very heavy duty diet! There simply is not the space on the top floor of the library to make this happen.
Ultimately, the brief reveals that the Council had already made up their mind and set in place arrangements to insert a customer services centre into the library, a whole six months before the matter came into the public domain. It’s the reason why they did not bother to expend any time and energy on a public consultation.
Rally and Meeting of the Planning Sub Committee on Monday 9 November
On the 9 November, despite the tight security and the metal barriers at the front of the Civic Centre campaigners staged a peaceful protest against plans to install a revolving door at the back of the library because of the serious child safeguarding issues it raises. In the Planning Sub Committee which followed the rally, Councillors were forced to listen to representations from community members objecting to Fusion’s application to install the new door. The fifty seven objections to the door from local residents showed the strength of feeling within the community. Despite the ultimate outcome of this committee meeting, we have to consider the fact we got this far to be a success. Campaigners forced the issue to be discussed in an open meeting by Councillors, rather than being rubber stamped within the planning department, as would normally be the case. Councillors were thus forced to openly take responsibility and reveal their support or lack of support for local residents.
Secondly, we were initially informed by the Council that despite the fifty seven objections, only two people would be allowed to address the Planning Sub Committee as there are no public speaking rights. This is merely another barrier placed in the path of residents wishing to get involved in the democratic process. Eventually, after a Twitter war initiated by Florian Peschelt, the Chair of the Planning Sub Committee, Councillor Peray Ahmet allowed five people to address the committee. They were Amamassa Kpognon, Yeliz Dogacan, Florian Peschelt, Jasmin Taylor and Zena Brabazon who all made excellent and impassioned speeches. In addition to the five, two Councillors, Isidoros Diakides, one of the ward councillors for Tottenham Green, and Clive Carter, (who described himself as “an active and proud member” of the Friends group) also gave brilliant speeches revealing their depth of knowledge on the Children’s Garden and planning regulations.
After the meeting those attending also spoke to Councillor Makbule Gunes, (another one of the Tottenham Green ward councillors) and discovered that she also supported the Friends group at the library and would have liked to address the committee on our behalf. We therefore have two out of the three councillors in Tottenham Green ward supporting the campaign. This leaves only Bernice Vanier in Tottenham ward in support of the degradation and reduction in size of the library.
There were few signs of life amongst the rest of the Councillors and the architect who proudly showed off with this plans “dogs dinner” he had made of the Children’s Garden. Only architects completely assured that they will be paid however rubbishy the quality of their designs would have put so little effort into the plans for the library and unashamedly submitted them.
Issues such as the problems involved in getting buggies through revolving doors were simply brushed aside and it immediately became obvious that when Jason Arthur, the Cabinet Member for Finance and Leader on the Plans for the Library started to address the committee in support of Fusion’s application that he was speaking off the top of his head as he was producing figures which were not even part of the Council’s own official spin campaign. In other words, he was making them up on the spot.
Nevertheless when it came to the vote there was a veritable sea of hands as most of the Councillors on the committee approved the installation of the revolving door. It is therefore not surprising that during this process, sheep noises were heard emanating from the public gallery. Councillors were clearly non-plussed by the fact that Fusion’s application contained a ten page arboricultural report which aimed to ensure the safety of the rare Swamp Cypress tree in the Children’s Garden, but that there was nothing in the application remotely concerned with the safety of the children making use of the library! Because we feel that the Councillors who voted for the installation of the door were prepared to ignore the serious child safeguarding concerns raised by residents we are naming and shaming them below by printing their names in a larger font and in bold. The councillors voting in favour of the door were
Councillor Vincent Carroll
Councillor James Patterson
Please remember the above names when making decisions about who to vote for at the next local elections. And if you are a member of the Labour Party, please remember these names when decisions about the reselection of councillors are discussed in the future.
To add insult to injury, outside, after the vote, Councillor Jason Arthur came across to the Chair and observed by two other committee members surprised us all by saying that the whole thing could be sorted out “one to one over a cup of coffee.” We believe he rather naively failed to understand just how unpalatable this particular cup of coffee would be. He stated that this was his way of working with all the Friends groups in the borough. We personally find this hard to believe and consider it to be merely a divide and rule tactic. Arthur therefore had to be informed that as committee members of a public library we simply could not make private deals with politicians!
See below for links to the Council’s website for the video of the meeting and also for coverage of the rally which preceded the event and the meeting as covered in the Haringey Independent:
http://www.haringey.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/191462
http://www.thetottenhamindependent.co.uk/news/13982111.Library_door_plans_approved_despite_councillor_opposition/
On 1 December, Florian Peschelt, from our committee, and Laura Harrison, a member of the Friends and a long-standing volunteer in the Children’s Garden, contractors and the works project manager on site in the Children’s Library in an attempt to save a number of plants and trees from destruction, once the works start in the garden area.
Our concerns were that the current planting would be destroyed when external work starts on the building, despite all the years of hard work, effort and devotion community members have expended in order to create a safe, secure and beautiful environment for children and their carers.
Firstly, the contractors will dig out some larger trees and bushes. In order to save smaller plants from the garden Florian and Laura met at the garden on the 4 of December. Please join us on future workdays in the Garden (more notice will be given). Help to preserve the plants is desperately needed from other Friends!!
Secondly, at least one positive outcome of the Planning Sub Committee meeting was that a requirement has been placed on the planning permission, that a ‘landscaping scheme’ for the garden area, and a timescale for delivering it, be submitted before the external works can start. After some discussion and the dawning realisation that the Council’s future plans for the garden were unimaginatively limited to gravel and concrete ramps, it was decided that any future decisions/plans about the garden would be made at a workshop at the community consultation event organised by us for February 27, 2016. Such a workshop will provide the ideal opportunity to get ideas and feedback on designs for the garden and also encourage the gathering together of a group of residents, interested in volunteering to take care of the garden in the future.
It was also discovered that the Council was not prepared to use any stones larger than gravel, even if they were more aesthetically pleasing because of fears that stones could be used as missiles! Also, despite the declarations that the library would be opening at the beginning of February, the library is now not expected to open before March 2016.
The plans produced by Frankham’s the architect at the meeting revealed that a gate has not been placed in the perimeter fencing and so it would only be possible to use the revolving door to exit from the library into the garden, and not from the outside of the perimeter fence into the library. In other words, as presented, there is no public entrance. We therefore have plans for a very expensive revolving door which leads to nowhere. When asked why a gate to allow a public entrance had not been placed in the perimeter fencing, the architects made it clear that they wished to door to be installed so that flexibility remained for it to be transformed into a public entrance at a future date. Rumour has it that whatever happens in this area is very much linked to the Council’s regeneration plans. Clearly, further applications for planning permission may have to be made if there is going to be any change of use of the land immediately beyond the perimeter fence to make it viable for a path to be cut through the garden; so for now the revolving door cannot be used as a public entrance. It is important that we all keep an eye on the situation and try to discover what the Council are up to and that we continue the campaign to ensure that the entrance is never used as a public entrance. It may be possible to get more concrete information on the Council’s plans via a Freedom of Information request, but if anyone has any knowledge of what the Council is planning to do with the area beyond the perimeter fence please could you let us know.
One of the Friends of Marcus Garvey Library, Keith Dunn, submitted and got passed the following motion at the last General Committee of the Tottenham Constituency Labour Party:
We call on the council to reverse its decision to place a customer service centre in Marcus Garvey Library and find a more suitable home for it that does no harm to the very well used and loved facility.
The new commercial area in the new Apex complex should include the customer service centre presently intended for Marcus Garvey Library. Any use of the Library for this purpose should be temporary.
This ward is particularly concerned at the contempt shown by the council towards the ethnic residents of Tottenham who have a profound emotional connection with a library dedicated to an icon of modern black history.
We understand that our M.P. David Lammy was also present at the meeting and supported the motion. Apparently, as the Labour Party works, this is just the beginning, and it takes time for these motions to be manifested as Council policy; but we truly welcome the support the motion gives the campaign and hope that it will eventually be taken up and supported by Labour Party members in the neighbouring Bruce Grove and Tottenham Hale wards as these areas also have Marcus Garvey Library users. If you are a Labour Party member please could you discuss the motion in your meetings? We are very grateful for the hard work Keith has put into getting this motion off the ground even though we are aware that it will be a long haul before it is implemented.
Marcus Garvey Library – Community Consultation 27 February 2016
We are organising a community consultation on the Marcus Garvey Library which will be taking place on the 27of February 2016. This event will be free to all local residents and those interested in the library. We feel that as a Friends group we have been placed in the position where we have had to do the Council’s work for them and organise this. It will consist of a range of workshops and we already have support from a group of architects, (proper architects interested in consulting with the community!) to help us to organise the day. As the workshop plans become more firm we will pass the information on to you.
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