MP attacks library policy

UP to a million pounds will be washed down the drain if East Sussex county council pulls out of the project for a new Lewes library, local MP Norman Baker has warned.

The shock figures were revealed in a reply to the MP, who had posed a series of questions to county chief executive Cheryl Miller.

The new library project was put on hold just as the pen was poised to sign the deal. It was one of the victims in a severe round of cost cutting, following the discovery of an accounting error by the county council.

Chery Miller s written reply shows that a 500,000 Arts Council grant towards the proposed regional literature centre in the new library building would be lost if the project is scrapped, and that the centre would probably be built elsewhere in the region.

Expenditure on the whole project to date - around 192,000 - will be written off. Officers time spent would be extra to this cost.

A further grant from South East Arts of 3,500 would also be withdrawn.

If the new library is not built, extra costs would be incurred providing a disabled access to the existing library building in Albion Street. Current disability legislation means that the county council cannot avoid improving the access, which Mrs Miller admits would be expensive, and lead to major disruption and loss of floor space.

The council is also reluctant to start new work on a building that may have a limited life ahead of it, until it is certain the new library is a write-off.

However, the council has retained 30,000 in the budget as a deposit on the possible future purchase of land, if the project is somehow reprieved.

Lewes music library is another casualty that was due to be part of the new scheme, and now faces homelessness within a matter of months.

Said Mr Baker: The news that the county council may pour up to a million pounds down the drain to achieve nothing, comes hard on the heels of the news that it may be prepared to pay up to 750,000 to pull out of the Port Access Road scheme in Newhaven, and achieve nothing there either.

He believes the council has a moral duty to complete the project. Pulling out now would waste money, land the county in a planning mess with the Albion Street listed building, and leave the music library homeless.

This is not leadership, it is crass incompetence .