Sale of Mill Road library to private bidder ‘kick in the teeth’ for residents

The sale of the former Mill Road library building to a commercial bidder is a “kick in the teeth” to local residents by the county council, according to a campaigner.

A community group which had proof of more than £1.4million in available finances to buy the grade II-listed building and turn it into an arts centre and cinema was not chosen as the preferred bidder by members of a Cambridgeshire County Council committee on Tuesday (October 15).

Instead, councillors unanimously voted to sell the building to the highest commercial bidder after some admitted that the local authority’s finances were “threadbare” and that selling to a community group was too big a “risk”.

This was in spite of a petition asking the council to save the building for the community reaching more than 2,000 signatures.

Kate Collins, former chair of the Mill Road Winter Fair and currently the Mill Road Fringe, told a meeting of the council’s assets and procurement committee that “hundreds of comments (on the petition) attest it is a building that means a huge amount for this community.”

She added: “Why then would our county council not trust the local community to deliver on this bid? This is the local community that demonstrates annually that it is capable of organising one of the biggest volunteer-led street fairs in the country, and which, in partnership with multiple agencies, has delivered and runs a state-of-the-art community centre adjacent to the old library. Frankly, it feels like a kick in the teeth, and several thousand people who have pledged their support will be outraged.”

Cambridgeshire County Council put the former library up for sale with a guide price of £700,000 and invited bids from community organisations as well as developers. The historic building was put back on the market earlier in the year after a previous preferred bidder, mental health charity Centre 33, pulled out due to estimated construction costs exceeding their budget.

Councillors chose to sell the building to an anonymous preferred bidder who could complete the sale within 30 days with no conditions attached and said he would rent out the building for “creative” purposes. His was the highest bid.

The former library was designated Asset of Community Value (ACV) by Cambridge City Council, which meant that the county council could not sell it to commercial bidders for six months. This was to give community interest groups time to raise funds to buy the building. The ACV designation does not determine who can buy the building, or the price paid.

The community group which had hoped to buy the building and make it a community arts centre and cinema had the support of the Architectural Heritage Fund.

Matthew Webb, who led the community bid, said: “I think we've always known it's been all about the money. The outcome was inevitable, but you still have to give it a go anyway.

“There's no guarantee now that it will be open to the public, and there's no guarantee of the use of the building. They've also said that what will happen there will be fluid.

“I sympathise with councillors in this position where they say publicly that their budgets are threadbare and they need funds as quickly as possible, however they come. I think that's to the detriment of a wider picture and an economic boost you would have seen by having a thriving cultural and art centre run by people all living close by. It's classic short termism.”

Cllr Eliza Meschini (Lab, King’s hedges) told the committee she didn’t want it to appear as a case of “the mighty and faceless council pitching itself against the poor residents… we're very much anything other than mighty. I'm afraid we are threadbare. And the point is not so much that we don't have cash, though we don't. The point is that we can't afford to take on any risk.”

This was echoed by the county council’s Liberal Democrat leader Lucy Nethsingha, who said: “If it is private individuals who have the capacity and the resources to bring this building back into the kind of use that we all want to see for it, I think that the right thing for us to do is to allow that to happen.”

The sale of the building was vehemently opposed by Cllr Richard Howitt (Lab, Petersfield), who asked the committee to stop the sale, saying it was “morally and ethically wrong” to sell the building off to a private bidder, given that it was “a building which was originally bequeathed to this council to stay in the public realm”.

He added the council had made “no attempt at local consultation” and said: “All along my constituents have been treated only as potential bidders or as no-one, with a complete unwillingness for the council to engage with local residents in a community development or place-making approach, at what is an iconic site in our community.”

The county council has stated that it will attempt to conclude the sale by the end of the year. It said in a statement: “The chosen buyer not only has the financial resources available to buy the building but also has a track record of success in the creative arts sector and already runs two community venues elsewhere. The bidder is also keen to preserve the architectural merits of the unique building and expects to engage with the community, once the sale has been completed.

“Councillors considered not only the financial bid made but also whether the offers delivered wider benefits for the local community. Planning restrictions already mean that the building can only be used as a school, museum, gallery, library, hall, place of worship, training centre or similar non-residential facility. Now, a deed will be used to limit future usage to the proposed use in the bid.”

The former library was built around 1892 and opened to residents five years later. The building has been owned by the county council since the 1970s and closed in 1996.