Following a backlash from the public, Merton Council announced a u-turn on the decision to include Wimbledon Library in a list of sites open for future development.

Following the announcement, Focus Team member Anthony Fairclough (who also runs the Wimbledon Station Book Swap) said:

I’m really pleased that Merton Council have listened to residents and said they’ll withdraw the Wimbledon library site from their ‘sites and policies plan’ – the list of the sites that the Council wants to see developed in the next 10 years.

The inclusion of the site in the plan would have opened up the site to the risk of potential future development, including retail, offices and flats. I personally think that the library building should remain for community, library and educational uses.

Congratulations must also go to Andrew Craig Nicol – the resident who spotted the issue and did something about it – and the thousands of residents who signed his petition and wrote statements on what Wimbledon library meant to them.

Depressingly, the Labour Party are still claiming online that the resident-run campaign was both politically motivated and a lie, despite the fact that they’ve now done what the campaign asked! They’re even trying to claim that opposition parties voting in the Council chamber against their budget plans is failing to “support the funding to protect our libraries”. Of course, it was Lib Dem councillors Iain Dysart and Mary-Jane Jeanes who spotted council officer proposals to close West Barnes library in 2011, and who mobilised public concern that saw the proposals shelved.

The next step for the campaign is to create a ‘Wimbledon library support group’ – to help improve the services and use of the library.