A campaign has been launched by Wimbledon resident, Andrew Craig Nicol, a library volunteer, to save Wimbledon library from inappropriate development (there’s a petition on the Council’s website here).

What’s the issue?
Merton Council has placed the Wimbledon library building on its ‘sites and policies DPD’ – a list of sites earmarked for development in the next 10 years, along with the Council’s preferred use for the sites.

Merton Council’s vision for the site includes the allocation of space for a library, but allows for its future development to include an “appropriate mix” of community, retail, financial and professional services, office and residential use.
What’s the Council said?
The councillor in charge of development, Labour’s councillor Andrew Judge told a local news websites that:

“. . . we do not know what opportunities will occur in Wimbledon town centre over the next few years and if a site became available that allowed us to build a much better library and community facility in the middle of the town centre we would want to examine it seriously.

“[changing the sites and policies DPD] stymies what we could do with the existing site and would prevent us from examining the potential opportunities for a new better library and community facility.”

What does the campaign call for?
The petition calls for the library to be withdrawn from the sites and policies DPD, and supports keeping the site as exclusively for library, adult education and community use.

We think the Labour-run Council’s plan would ultimately lead to the loss of yet more community space.

We hope that people will tell Merton Council what they think by signing the petition, around 900 people have done so already. Sign here.

There’s more information on the Wimbledon Guardian here.
And news website WimbledonSW19.com here.