Events have moved quickly since we first alerted you to the threat to Carnegie Library which Labour-controlled Lambeth Council is considering selling off for private flats.

Labour councillors and the local MP have sought to dismiss the threat to the library. Yet the facts are there in black and white: the “Building operates well as a library however its location is not ideal and suffers from low service numbers, high maintenance and high running costs. High running costs and poor location suggest this facility should be closed and relocated to Herne Hill. This property would be ideal for sale for a private residential flat conversion.”

The report that Labour councillors did not want you to see can be viewed on the Council’s own website (Please click here to view the details on page 232)

In their hasty denials local Labour councillors make no reference to this document. More importantly, they make no commitment to maintain the Carnegie Library in its current grade II listed building. It is clear that Labour councillors were going to consider selling off the existing library and building another one “somewhere” in Herne Hill.

Instead they have chosen to make snide remarks about the Conservatives rather than addressing the legitimate concerns of local residents in response to this document. Local residents are fully aware that this is not the first time Labour has wanted to close the Carnegie Library.

Andrew Carnegie established the library in its current building for the benefit of the whole of the community and not as an opportunity for property developers.

Herne Hill’s Labour councillors and MP did not tell residents about these plans until Conservatives unearthed them in the footnotes of a document’s huge appendices.

We want our Library where it is now, lending books and properly funded. We need some straight answers and clear commitments from the Labour councillors

The Carnegie Library remains under threat until the Labour Cabinet explicitly rejects the proposals to relocate the library in favour of private flats and states that the Carnegie Library will not be sold off for private flats. We challenge the Labour administration in Lambeth to give an unequivocal commitment to maintain the library in its current building for the foreseeable future.

We will continue our campaign until we get this commitment and secure the future of the Carnegie Library