Unease over new library plans

LEWES campaigners are pressing on with fund-raising towards the proposed new Friars Walk library despite East Sussex County Council's decision to revise the design because of rising costs.

But at least two key members have expressed grave misgivings about the whole ethos of collecting public money for a scheme with an as yet undecided future.

The estimated bill for the original design has come in at 3.4 million, leaving an 850,000 shortfall.

The likely casualty will be the library's literature and performance area.

However, the library itself is still to go ahead with 1.9 million in the kitty, council leaders have promised.

Cllr Meg Stroude, member for community services, said: 'We will now focus our efforts on working up a revised design and then building a new library for Lewes as soon as possible.'

But campaigner Dina Thorpe, former county librarian, told the Express this week: 'What exactly will be built with the 1.9 million which the county council says it has committed to the new library.

'Given rising building costs, a further delay will mean that what 1.9 million would have bought in July, 2001, when the library was temporarily pulled from the county council's capital programme, what it will build now in September, 2002, and what it will build in "early 2004", when building work is now estimated to start, is getting smaller all the time !

'The budget for the new library in Lewes was always modest compared with budgets for new libraries in other parts of the country over the last few years, but it would have produced an imaginative and workable design.

'Until we know what can be built for 1.9 million, it appears foolhardy to expect people in Lewes to continue fundraising for a project which, it seems, may well only be able to give basic library provision book borrowing and minimal IT and not allow for the music, local studies, literacy and learning facilities, which are considered basic in most new libraries.'

Another unhappy campaigner Lyn Donbroski (see letters page) said he had no quarrel with the appeal committee but rather with the council for making a 'pre-emptive' announcement before the matter could be properly discussed.

Said Alan Brothers of the Lewes Library Friends: 'It would be sad to lose these two expert helpers and we certainly hope we don't.

'But if they leave, we still have a strong team to continue raising funds.

'I'm also not quite sure the county council has been entirely fair with us by making this snap decision to revise the design.'

The county council said: 'We very much hope that the Friends will continue their fund raising efforts.

'Additional funding will be very important in providing enhancements to the scheme that the council could not otherwise afford.'

And Joy Preston, chairman of the Lewes Library Appeal, said: 'I should like the Friends to be able to say, when the library is built: "This is what we helped to build, and it couldn't have been done without us.'' '

A coffee morning tomorrow (Saturday) from 10.30am at Elm Tree House, Southover High Street, will raise money for the library appeal.

Norman Baker, MP for Lewes, has accepted an invitation and has donated a raffle prize for two people to have tea on the terrace of the House of Commons.