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SMBC consultation on new library in Merseyway

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Dave:
Update: this week it was confirmed that this exciting scheme is to go ahead, despite some noisy opposition from one of our major political parties.   See https://www.placenorthwest.co.uk/news/stockport-issues-final-sign-off-for-14-5m-stockroom/

Great news for Stockport, in two respects: modernising and extending the library facilities, and at the same time making a major contribution to the revival of the town centre through the redevelopment of the grim and tatty Merseyway precinct.

Dave:
As corium points out, there are two linked but separate issues here:

1)  Providing a new and enhanced library and learning centre fit for the 21st century, while at the same time doing something with the grim and depressing Merseyway.
2)  Adapting the current library building for other uses, if the new library project goes ahead.

When you look at the outline of the scheme, and take into account the £14.5 million government grant that has been secured for it, it looks like a no-brainer.  So it's quite weird that one of the major political parties in Stockport is campaigning against it...  ::)

Anyway, we can all make up out own minds and respond to the council's consultation here:  https://consultation.stockport.gov.uk/policy-performance-and-reform/central-library-proposal/

But don't hang about - the consultation period finishes this Monday 18th October. 

corium:
Personally I feel two separate issues or getting artificially combined when they shouldn't be.

Yes there should be a library in the centre of Stockport & for me Merseyway or similar is going to increase the potential usage and help maintain an active town centre. Yes it might not end up being a traditional library but that is a separate issue. it's the function not the building that is key here.

Separate is what to do with a historic building close to, but not quite in the town centre that probably needs a significant injection of repair money and that's how we should be approaching the current facilities & is a completely separate debate.

Dave:
I have no inside knowledge of the council's thinking on this - I can only speculate like everyone else.  However, for what it's worth I suspect that underlying the issues mentioned in the FAQs page, there are probably two main motivations for this plan:

1.   Cost.  The library building is over 100 years old.  As as others have pointed out, it is architecturally of some merit, (much more so than the grim Merseyway), but Edwardian buildings cost a small fortune to heat, light and maintain, and that gets even worse as they continue to age.  Like practically every other local authority, Stockport is struggling to balance the books, being caught in a pincer movement between rising costs (especially social care costs, which have to be met) and declining funding from central government.   

2.    Merseyway, which, as we all know, has in recent years become even more grim and depressing than it always was, now that so many of its shops and stores have given up the fight for survival.   Something has be done about it, and this plan, with the added attraction of £14.5 million of external funding, probably looked like the least worst way to kill two birds with one stone. 

GM:
Whilst I know there was an additional document, it was in a docx download via a smart phone which I won't be doing.

Got to agree about the cack architecture, if they wanted to use all the excessive buzz words to attract the youth, they could have just added a floor onto the redrock when it was built.

I'm afraid I'm not convinced by Stockport saying it won't be sold off etc, they'll probably turn it into some hipster coffee shop so you can have one before or after a big M over the road.

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