The Cuts are Coming

Save Newham Libraries is a new campaign aimed at challenging the mayor’s proposal to cut library funding by 50%. 

Newham Recorder report on the consultation launched by the council (in the form of a ten-part questionnaire).

Some residents will have received an email that doesn’t even mention cuts, and suggests that this is all an exercise if resident-engagement. “We’re on a mission to make Newham Libraries the best they can be, and we need your voice to help us get there. Take the Newham Libraries Survey before 28 September.” 

In a masterpiece of spin, the cabinet member responsible, Cllr McLean is quoted in the Recorder apparently seeing a 50% cut in funding as a positive thing,

"… we can’t stand still, and we’ve seen libraries transformed in recent years with a much stronger emphasis on digital services.

"We want to build on our success, but I want to know that any changes we may propose reflect residents' hopes and ambitions for the service."

So, if you have some good ideas about doing more with less, please let Cllr McLean know.

We do not yet know which libraries will be closing. One candidate must be the Canning Town and Custom House Library and Resource Centre in Rathbone Market. This sits roughly 50 metres away from the old Canning Town Library, a building that has remained decaying and unused for the entirety of Mayor Fiaz’s term of office.

Under the Wales administration, no libraries were closed. They formed an important part of the social infrastructure of the borough. What did happen is that many became centres for community activities, places to meet, places to learn new skills, places to share common interests. Enhancing their roles made the libraries viable.

These additional services have been compiled by Save Newham Libraries.

When the new library was opened in Canning Town, the old one closed and was due to be leased to the private sector. Nando’s were due to open a new restaurant and training centre; they would fund the repairs and maintenance of the building, 20 new jobs would be created for local people and Nando’s would be paying a hefty annual rent to Newham.

Fiaz stopped that and the building remained empty.

Then, as part of a £40m Levelling Up grant we learned that Haworth-Tompkins would be working with Newham on the refurbishment. It was scheduled for completion  in December 2024, but eight months later it still has some way to go. It is slated to become a ‘resource centre’ with a range of services eerily similar to the services provided at the neighbouring Canning Town Library and Resource Centre.

This is what the council website used to say about the new library.

The cost of the refurbishment is not known. What we do know from the tender documents is that it is in the region of £5.5m.

This brings the total cost of the abandoning the Nando’s contract to something in the region of £9-£10m, (refurbishment; plus maintenance and security costs; plus lost income from rent and business rates). The justification for this cavalier attitude to cash was that Will Thorne had once spoken at the library and converting it to a restaurant would somehow besmirch his reputation. The problem was that Thorne never spoke at the library. He spoke at the meeting that launched the Gas Workers’ Union next door, in the main hall of what was then Canning Town, Town Hall. But facts seem to be as important as money to the Fiaz administration.

“Its easy to be wrong and persist in being wrong when the costs of being wrong are being paid by others” (Thomas Sowell). The “others” in this instance are us, the council taxpayers of the London Borough of Newham and the children and students and others who use the libraries, libraries that might soon be gone.

You can’t help but think that if Mayor Fiaz had been a little more focused on the financial viability of the council than say, some vanity projects like the failed Borough of Culture bid, it might have been possible to save some libraries, and empty the litter bins, and pick up the fly-tips, and not hike council tax by 40%, and sort out the housing department and that sort of thing.

Save Newham Libraries note that there are elections coming up in 2026. Cutting essential services might prove to be costly for Labour. Candidate Forhad Hussain might want to consider his policy on libraries and put some ‘clear blue water’ between himself and Mayor Fiaz.

This is a link to the petition to save the libraries.