I asked the leader of the council about my local library and he swiftly replied as below. The council has no plans to cease providing a library service in Greenford. The rumours in question most likely arise from a paper approved by Ealing’s cabinet last week on a review of the council’s assets. The council has looked at most of the current property assets it holds to ensure that they are being used as effectively as possible within the hierarchy below:Effective use for council servicesUse for developing genuinely affordable housingGeneration of commercial income to assist with meeting the council’s savings requirementsDisposal for capital receipt In Greenford town centre, we are using this hierarchy to look at the assets we hold there and using them to develop a neighbourhood offer, based on where possible co-locating and integrating the services we currently run from a number of buildings in the town centre. We are very much at early stages of developing this model, with work to be done on identifying the most suitable of the assets to use as a service hub and on work that would need to be done to ensure services can continue to be effectively provided from there. We know that Greenford library is well-used and valued and, as already mentioned, a library service for Greenford will be at the heart of the neighbourhood offer. Greenford will be one of three pilots for the neighbourhood offer, alongside Perivale and Hanwell: the same applies in both cases in regards to the library service. You can read the full council report on the assets review and the summary of recommendations that the cabinet agreed to take forward. In all cases, we will be working with local communities and service users to develop the neighbourhood offer over coming months.
Graham Weeks ● 2840d