Union demands funds for “crumbling” Libraries

South Lambeth and Durning libraries closed by power failures, Streatham, Clapham, Waterloo, Durning, Minet, Archives and Carnegie closed by staff shortages, Streatham, South Lambeth, Durning, Carnegie, Minet and West Norwood closed by heating failures, Brixton closed by broken doors and toilet floods, Streatham closed by a blocked fire escape and collapsing ceiling, West Norwood and Carnegie closed by floods through leaking roofs.This is business as usual in Lambeth's crumbling, dirty, ancient, and increasingly dangerous public libraries according to public service trade union UNISON.”Lambeth Labour Party promised in their 2006 election manifesto to increase investment in libraries,” said a UNISON spokesperson. “At the time the Council acknowledged a long history of underinvestment in the library service. The service had insufficient money to maintain buildings to basic health and safety standards, to replace failing IT or to buy sufficient book stock. The Council were warned about the state of building maintenance due to the age of facilities and underinvestment over many years and that serious incidents could cause closure of libraries. That is what is happening now.”

UNISON points out that rather than increase the Libraries budget the Council has cut funding by more than 20%. Many library jobs are kept vacant to save money and senior management posts have been filled "temporarily" for more than two years by managers attempting to do two jobs at once.

UNISON is demanding a clear plan of improvement with a sensible budget and timetable and is calling upon local people to support the demand for adequate funding of Lambeth libraries.