THE £2m new door and LBH Sequencing

TODAY is the final day for comment about the new door that is proposed for Tottenham's main library.

• Yesterday morning, the Council 'Cabinet' Member responsible, signed the £2,092,662.55 contract authorising the door and related works. I attended this Signing with the Chair of the Friends of Marcus Garvey Library
• At the end of last month, the public library was closed (said to re-open on 28 February 2016).
• Several weeks earlier, there was "some consultation" about this
• On March 17, the Cabinet decided on the new door and associated works
• At some point in the past, the Council decided to displace the 180 staff at Apex House and to sell up

Here's my comment on:

Planning Application HGY/2015/2325  (link)

"Installation of a new entrance door to the south elevation of Marcus Garvey Library along with the associated external works"

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This application should not have been validated with a description so brief, that it does not remotely describe what is actually proposed. 

It gives no hint of the extensive reconfiguring and structural changes; the expenditure of between two to three million pounds by the Council and not least, the closure of a public library, in a deprived area – Tottenham’s main library – for at least half a year.

However, I will try to take it at face value. I wish to object to this application for the new entrance door.

The current library door is adequate for the building’s current purpose as a library; however, the putative purpose would be to convert it largely for use for another purpose (although I understand the name “Marcus Garvey Library” would be retained, at least for the time being).

The primary purpose of a new door would be to facilitate extra foot traffic to and from a Customer Service Centre that would occupy most of the current floor upstairs. This is no advantage to library users; in truth it would be a major disadvantage. The current equivalent of this foot traffic (at Apex House) is so heavy, that sometimes the external doors are locked shut, because there are more people inside that can be accommodated inside or dealt with safely. 

If the new door goes ahead, then such a problem may be visited on what is left of the library, or rather, library users. CSC-users locked outside may not be a concern to planners, but the quantity inside may disturb ordinary regular library users in what the architect’s plans heroically call “Quiet areas” or “Quest Study areas”. 

The nature of those outside and in, are people who are anxious or angry and seeking housing benefit, dropping off/collecting keys, other housing questions and such like.

The new entrance would cut through the existing Children's Garden. This is currently a safe, quiet, enclosed space that can be supervised easily. Parents can leave their toddlers there safely. The Children’s Garden would cease to exist and basic security would disappear, not to be replaced.

The new doorway – heavily trafficked – would be alongside what is left of the Children’s Library. This has been poorly thought through, and yet another example in this re-development of the effect of attempting to cram a quart into a pint pot.

A new doorway would also create a busy two-way thoroughfare, with respect to the existing front door. Through a library. A significant body of users would have no interest in any of the CSC/library uses, but would simply wish to transit from one side of the building to the other: i.e. a cut-through to and from the Leisure Centre. This busy two-way path would cut the remainder of the library into two and rob significant usable space from the library function.

The rear of the building is currently a car park and could broadly be described as a wide, back alley. Here, overlooking of a public space is needed, but is largely absent. I suggest this is a potential security hazard for any user, especially at night. A site visit would disclose the limited or blocked sight-lines and the general feeling of a lack of comfort.

A back-door, secondary or tradesmen’s entry degrades all users of the building, but especially for users of Customer Services. It is arrangements like this that give rise to the expression “poor door” – meaning a second-class door in distinction to a first class door. The first class door, if it remained, would be adjacent to the privately-run leisure centre.

The new poor-door would help generate a noise nuisance and general disturbance that might be unacceptable anywhere, but in few places greater than in a public library, with areas labelled “quiet” or “quiet study”. The scale of the re-purposing would create an oppressive impact on both traditional library users and those using the rows of PCs.

The effect of the claimed simple “new entrance door” would have the effect of altering the library in ways that are thought to be modern and fashionable, but have not been thought through. In particular, there has been no Public Consultation. There has instead been a flawed, limited and unsatisfactory “engagement” that had no impact. It may be appropriate for the library character to change, but this needs more attention.

I'm not opposed to the broad principle of co-location, but co-location should been adjacent or alongside. Marcus Garvey doesn't have sufficient spare space to accommodate all this new function and that new function impinges greatly on what is left. When does a Library cease to be a library?

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Change of Use

I note that the Council Leader, in a letter dated 26 August 2015 to the Chair of the Friends of Marcus Garvey Library, stated

There are a few offices on the first floor that will be for customer-based services to help residents.

If “offices” are not B1 then they may be Sui Generis but that would require Change of Use.

It would appear this is an 'arm's length' application. As such it would have been wise for the local planning authority to request an application for change of use. Because a change in character found to be evident after the work is done, would be very unlikely to be enforced and the Council would expose itself to costs.

The case law cited thus far, in denying any change of use, may not be exactly relevant.

I have asked at this morning's Cabinet Member signing, for a copy of the original Brief to the architects, presumably prepared by Library Services on the basis of some thinking and/or evidence. 

I understand that that document was not published, is not in the public domain and therefore did not form part of the engagement (still less, any Public Consultation). Without public sight of the Brief, the engagement would seem to have been meaningless.

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What evidence has been provided that the Library will still be sufficient for local needs, especially as it serves a deprived area?

Haringey should be looking to be proactive in helping to provide space for adults and children to study, when they live in homes that often have little individual space for quiet study, and thus actively helping to improve young people's chances in life.

This Library needs to be an exemplar given the population it serves. The subtext of this application is that the Council does not care for the community.

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I am a Member of the Council’s Planning Sub Committee and I declare an interest that I am a member of the Friends of Marcus Garvey Library. I will therefore not participate in any decision on this Application by the Committee and indeed, may be part of a panel of objectors.

Clive Carter (Cllr.)
Highgate Ward
Liberal Democrat Party
Spokesman on Libraries