Irwell Valley - lease or no lease, just get the library open!

This time last year, Irwell Valley Housing Association, with much public fanfare and with an obvious eye on generating some fantastic publicity for itself, announced that they had "listened to the local community" and were going to re-open the Haughton Green Library after Tameside Council had initially closed it! 

Over the last twelve months however, people have kept asking when is the Haughton Green Library re-opening? Many local people would also like to know why Irwell Valley seems to be more intent on promoting its own projects regarding the building - and trying to compete with other community centres in the area - when so many local people have specifically made it clear that it is the Library that they want re-opened?

Instead of the whole library being restored, Irwell Valley announced months ago that only a small part of the building would actually function as a Library. The Friends of Haughton Green Library were first told that the Library would re-open in May, then June, then July, then September and most recently during the October half-term. The Friends of Haughton Green Library - who after all, are just residents and volunteers - were then expected to form a Company Limited by Guarantee and to sign a Lease before they could begin using the building.

1500 people signed a petition to save Haughton Green Library and even now there are many volunteers who are willing to give up their own free time to help provide a library service for the community. Increasingly however, it now seems to many people that it was never the intention of Irwell Valley to provide a library service for the local community - but merely to use that excuse as a pretext for taking control of the whole building. As far as Irwell Valley is concerned, it would seem that the Friends of Haughton Green Library have now served their purpose. 

Irwell Valley Housing Association dared to put itself forward as the "saviour of Haughton Green Library" - well now it needs to honour the commitment it made to the local community to re-open it, or else show itself to be no better than the local Councillors who closed it in the first place!

Carl Simmons 

Denton South Independent

31st October 2013