(Petition updated 17 November 2024)     A month ago, Cambridgeshire Council decided to sell the much-loved former Library on Mill Road.  We are now calling on the County Council to ensure the community is given first refusal if there is a problem with the agreed sale.  A sale like this will have Heads of Terms that the County can impose, and with which the buyer has to comply.  

We are calling for a Heads of Terms clause that says that if the County’s preferred bidder wants to put our Old Library up for sale, first refusal has to be offered to the Community.  This would prevent this listed building, and Asset of Community Value built for the local community, from passing out of community ownership for ever.  

The more people who sign this petition, the greater chance we have of convincing uninvolved County Councillors that the Old Mill Road Library is a building that people care about, and that keeping it in public use, open to all, is vital for Mill Road and its communities.  Please sign today!

The County Council decided to sell to an as-yet unnamed “creative-minded” buyer.  It is clear that this unnamed buyer (the “Preferred Bidder 1) is a totally commercial buyer.  The petition (then at over 2,000 signatures) was not presented to this committee meeting, as I was refused permission to speak.   

Now Heads of Terms for this sale are being negotiated behind closed doors.  

The former Library’s past significance as a focus for the local community, and its potential for the future, are all the more important now that the highly controversial bus gate closure of Mill Road is in progress.  More people have signed this petition than supported that very divisive proposal, which has fractured the local community.  The former Library could help to bring the community together again. 

The library was built for the Mill Road community, in perpetuity, in 1896 by the Borough Council.  But many things have changed since then. It was transferred to the County Council in 1974, and then closed in 1996 as part of local authority cuts. Since then, throughout a long history of neglect followed by partial repairs, the County Council has failed to engage with the local community. Now the Council is desperate to rid itself of the only listed building on Mill Road.  It wants a commercial sale. That would lose, forever, this prized asset of community value from community use, in an area of high density and very little community space.   

The only organisation that has engaged with the community has been the Community Bid team (now incorporated as Mill Road Library CIC), which has involved more than 1000 people. Their ideas have been represented in the  Arts Bid proposal (https://millroadlibrary.com which has over 700 letters of support, and involves re-opening the building to all for public benefit - in partnership with local community groups wanting to establish a cultural hub that serves all.  

This proposal to bring communities together in a revitalised Library building could not be more timely. As Lisa Nandy, Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport, said at the Labour Party conference, "We will hand back power to communities to reclaim their cultural assets and historic buildings so they have a vibrant future, not a forgotten past"

https://labour.org.uk/updates/press-releases/lisa-nandy-speech-at-labour-party-conference-2024/