Lambeth and Croydon have confirmed that the Upper Norwood Library’s joint agreement has ended.
Under a new agreement, Croydon will transfer the 112-year old Library building, staff and agreed budgets to Lambeth.
The fine print of the agreement is being negotiated but the transfer of assets from Croydon to Lambeth is scheduled to take place over the next few months. Croydon Council has agreed to provide an annual contribution of £75,000, for the next two years. This is renewable under a three-year funding agreement. In contrast, Lambeth’s contribution to the Library will be £170,000 a year.
Lambeth in turn will work with the community-led steering group Upper Norwood Joint Campaign whose aim is to create a new trust which will run the library as “a publicly-funded, professionally staffed service”.
Although the continued operation of our Library is ‘good news’ the bad news is that it will have to function on little more than half the budget that it previously enjoyed, while long-term funding remains uncertain.