My map gets used! And some other election-y stuff

Nice to see that my efforts are contributing to local endeavour: Andrew Gambier's handy map of who's who in the impending Peninsula elections uses the boundaries I drew a while back for my blog to show the area I aim to represent.

In other news, scaffolding appears on East Greenwich Library just in time for the election season to kick off, despite the (unwritten) claim from Cllr. Fahy that work would be under way two months ago. To be honest I'm just glad the work's finally getting started, though the news that Greenwich Community College will be closing down its part of library is yet another blow to the future of the building. I imagine that unless a significant change in the balance of power occurs in the next couple of months, the library will continue to struggle on until the future of the Heart of East Greenwich project becomes clearer. If I had my way of course... but then words can't make up for actions, can they?

This evening was spent leaflet-/canvassing in the SE3 part of Charlton's ward, where the Conservative team have been listening to and tackling various local concerns - some new, some old - from students using the back gate at BBCS to how late the rugby club parties in the wee hours. The view on the doorstep is always a good weathervane of how people feel generally, and this evening was no exception - now that national coverage of the election is underway, people are generally better informed of the parties' policies at a national level, and this tends to either shape their opinion of local politics, or eclipses it. It means that all the graft we've put in so far can be amplified a thousandfol or dashed to pieces by a well-placed or misjudged comment from either of the two main parties at a national level. At the moment, I've noticed an increase in undecided voters, a slight decrease in those who say they don't vote (I'm afraid I tired of trying to explain the significance of spoiling a ballot many doorsteps ago, but believe me I was quite a fan of registering my disaffection with witty and/or profane comments on my slip back in my more youthful days) and am still waiting to see the election signs appear in the front room windows...

There's a full week of canvassing and leafleting ahead (and fitting in a splendiferous uni assignment somewhere in the middle). I'm looking forward to finding out what the people of Greenwich make of us, and whether our work of the last few years (qv. GCs's website, our blogs and the local commentariat) will permit them to reward us with the opportunity to inject some energy into the council's work and really crack on with transforming the Borough's offer.

When pictures tell so many words...

A little over a year ago, the Greenwich Phantom ran a piece on the uncertain future of East Greenwich library. The Heart of East Greenwich project was struggling ahead, placing the future of the listed building in doubt.

With the Heart of East Greenwich project stalled, I wondered what had become of our library. Last week I met with Terry Wheeler from the Friends of East Greenwich library to find out what had changed in a year. The pictures below describe the library's general condition better than I can:

Terry said that a lot of the leaking was put down to the lead being stolen from the roof - he didn't know if the council had replaced it - and poor drain maintenance under the building that had caused the floors to become saturated and rotted the parquet floors. These have been removed and the library has been recarpeted, but a lot of water still seems to be getting in.

Parts of the building are derelict, including a flat above the front of the library that has been condemned. The physical library itself occupies about 1/4 of the building space, another 1/3 or so appears to be used by Greenwich Community College, while the remainder is derelict. It also has a basement area, though if the ground floor suffers from water seepage, then goodness knows what the areas below ground are like! The boiler has also been broken in the library for more than a week - perhaps by now it's been fixed?

It's a crying shame. I think this is a sad example of a place being neglected in anticipation of a new replacement library, but since that's all stalled now, they're basically stuck with a building that's got into such a poor state of repair that it's going to take a lot of investment to put it right. They've also put it into a spiral whereby the opening hours reduce, the book selection shrinks, so fewer people visit, so they can't justify keeping it open, so they reduce the opening hours... and so on.

Terry said the council had estimated putting the library back into good repair at £2.3 million. It's going to need a lot of work, but I think if you put the flat back into action and thought cleverly about the use of space, it would not just be of service to the community, but begin to start paying for itself - particularly as Terry tells me the new "heart of East Greenwich library" isn't even phase one of the development, it's going to be somewhere along phase two or three. I must confess that I have my doubts as to whether it will ever happen, and even if it does, surely Carnegie's donation to the borough should stay open for the enjoyment of the borough?

More details to follow.