It was National Library Day on Saturday, and the Save Kensal Rise Library campaigners continued their vigil, guarding the library from closure. They have been dealt a blow this morning by the Court of Appeal, which has denied them leave to appeal to the Supreme Court following the defeat of their case last December.
The Court of Appeal’s original judgment gave the campaigners one glimmer of hope that remains alight. It noted that the local council, Labour controlled Brent, could ‘bear a share’ of keeping Kensal Rise Library open without incurring costs by allowing volunteers to run the library. The campaigners urge the council to ‘preserve this vital local resource’ by allowing a community-run service — they are also urging the secretary of state to intervene under the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964. The council insists that it is working towards a solution, but points out that the courts have ‘vindicated’ its actions at every stage.
The legal avenue has been far more profitable for campaigners against library closures in Gloucestershire and Somerset. Those councils will not be seeking a joint appeal against the High Court’s decision that they acted unlawfully by closing libraries. A spokesman for Gloucestershire County Council said,
'We are not appealing against the High Court’s decision. We have drafted a fresh strategy that aims to make the most of its limited resources, new technology and volunteers to create a library service that works...We are currently consulting on our new proposals.'
Interestingly, the two library campaigns ran similar strategies when it came to equality regulation compliance, which makes their contrasting fortunes all the more stark. Indeed, the Somerset and Gloucester case turned on that issue alone. The High Court’s judgment noted that ‘the relevant decisions had been taken without the necessary ‘due regard’ required by the public sector equality duty.’ (All other points went against the Claimants.) On the other hand, the Brent campaigners lost on all counts, including on grounds of alleged equality non-complaince.
It only goes to show how integral bureaucratic equality regulations have become in the fabric of our national life. The West Country councils, having failed to show ‘due regard’, are having to reconfigure their plans. Whereas Brent council can now execute what Philip Pullman has described as its ‘philistine’ strategy.
Comments
On Benzos
February 7th, 2012 4:11pmCoo! What a slanging match over nothing!
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Steve
February 7th, 2012 11:54amI was in my local library in Islington yesterday. It's a den of hobos and romance novels. Why should my hard earned tax dollars subsidise bad writing and the Internet use of the Down and Out?
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P. Richardson
February 6th, 2012 8:17pmYour interest in the public library srvice will be greatly appreciated by all library users and campaigners across the country.
Why? Because the whole service is under threat from the Local Government Association ably aided and abetted by Ed Vaizey MP and his boss, Jeremy Hunt Mp, not to mention numerous civil servants, all of whom aim to destroy the 1964 Public Libraries and Museums Act, and with it the lirary service.
Nobody can fathom why, but do not expect logic, from any politician or civil servant!
Patricia Richardson
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Johanna
February 6th, 2012 7:37pmI would argue that the judge's ruling on the PLA in Glos is far from "irrelevant" given GCC claim they were given a "clean bill of health on the PLA". They certainly were not, as the claimants lawyers explain in the CMS evidence. That the judge deferred to the Sec of State is very important particularly as we are still appealing for secretary of state to intervene as GCC appear to be making the same mistakes again.
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Shirley Burnham
February 6th, 2012 7:32pmAre you still accepting comments on this article ? Grateful to know.
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David Blackburn
February 6th, 2012 7:08pm2) Because the G&S authorities were in breach of the law, the court's observation about the secretary of state's primary superintendence under section 7 of the Public Libraries and Museums Act became irrelevant. However, the principle is now of vital importance in the Brent case - hence the fact the campaigners are imploring the government to intervene, all other avenues having been exhausted.
I'm not criticising either campaign or the judgments related to them, but to emphasise the importance of equality compliance in these two cases. After all, the courts have decided that one set of libraries has been closed legally, while the other has been closed illegally.
So neither judgment concerns the rights and wrongs of councils closing local libraries, which the secretary of state may yet consider in the Brent case. Rather, the judgments are about (among other things) a particular council's attention to its duties relating to equality legislation.
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David Blackburn
February 6th, 2012 7:07pmShirley Burnham and Johanna,
1) I think we are talking at crossed-purposes: my article is not about the campaigns; rather it is about the importance of equality regulation compliance by local authorities.
I contrasted the two Claimants' equality compliance challenges. This is not a comparison; indeed I say that their fortunes are starkly different.
The G&S campaign won because the councils were in breach of the law, having failed to give 'due regard' to equality compliance. That judgment on equality compliance was the determining factor in establishing illegality in the G&S case; and the strength of that point meant that the councils involved see no point in appealing the decision. In the Brent case, the equality issue was just one decision that went against the campaigners, but it was, nonetheless, important.
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Johanna
February 6th, 2012 6:23pmI am not "wrong" and it is your article that makes no sense, lazily comparing two different cases. I have been heavily involved in the case, been in the court room throughout and spoken to the QC and the solicitors involved in both cases, at length . I have full transcripts of the judges rulings and have studied them in depth with the legal teams. The judge was deferential to the secretary of state. Gloucestershire County Council utterly failed to take user needs into account or to mitigate the impact on vulnerable people. Brent did not. The defence claimed they lost on a "minor technicality" the judge ruled it an "substantive breach of the law" and "bad government" so forgive me for taking your quote with a pinch of salt. I refer you to the claimants lawyers submission the CMS select committee.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmcumeds/writev/library/library.pdf and Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries website with a briefing from the lawyers. I will not copy and paste it out of context here, I am sure you could do the research for yourself.
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Shirley Burnham
February 6th, 2012 5:43pmWhy be critical of Johanna when, clearly, there are a number of errors of fact in this article ? You might have had the grace to thank her for pointing them out. Yes, please - do undertake a bit of research before bursting into print. It's lazy not to. Insofar as the "Pollyanna" remark is concerned: please note that optimism, honesty and good faith, the virtues displayed by Eleanor H Porter's heroine, have been a consistent feature of the Gloucestershire residents' campaign to save a service they value from the axe.
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David Blackburn
February 6th, 2012 5:02pm3) On Jo's point about Brent 'having ticked the equality boxes'. My apologies, the phrase was a figure of speech which I hoped would have been contrasted by the technical phrase 'due regard' - or rather the complete lack of 'due regard' by Gloucestershire and Somserset Councils.
Hopefully, any possible confusion has now been removed.
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