Special Constituency Meeting
As has been reported in the local press recently, there is talk of the possibility that three council car parks may be sold to help fund the redevelopment of the town centre library.
The car parks in Mill Street, Station Street and King Edwards Square could raise as much as £1.67m which would form a large chunk of the £1.8m required.
A special Constituency meeting is to be held on Tuesday February 21st in The Bedford Suite, Sutton Coldfield Town Hall at 7pm.
The main item on the agenda is Sutton Coldfield Library Update – Disposal of Town Centre Car Parks.
A copy of the agenda can be downloaded here
Public report on the disposal of car parks (pdf)
Library 07/02/2012 (pdf)
Proposed Car Park Review (pdf)
More about the closure and plans for the library
Tags: BCC, local government
11 Responses
Michael
Once the car parks are sold, they will be gone forever.
Why cant they re-locate the library to the old court hall thats up for sale next to the police station, and keep the car parks.
Also, isnt one of the mentioned car parks the one they had ear-marked for a future bus station?
Philip Aucott
is it really a good idea to loose car parks after all the roads are getting busier every day.
Surely we would need a new parking facility to replace the ones that would be sold.
It’s a solution, but probably not the right one.
Richard
The library building is held on a repairing lease so BCC would still have to pay to remove the asbestos, even if they moved out.
I think the old magistrate’s court is owned by central government so there would be a cost to purchase plus a substantial amount for refurbishment and alteration.
The accompanying documents posted here state that there is enough spare capacity in the remaining car parks to absorb the loss of those proposed for sale.
The point about the bus station is a good one. I think ‘ear-marked’ is too strong but it (Station Street) was certainly considered. Interesting that the documents make no mention of this.
Chris Ward
This is a breathtakingly stupid idea. Sutton needs more car parks not less. Selling car parks in order to allow buildings to be built upon them just increases urban density, which in turn adds pressure to car parking spaces!
It is of course a disgrace that the library needs to be redeveloped at all so soon after it was built, why can’t we do things properly in this country any more?
Stewart
There are many unused and vacant shops in Sutton town centre. Why not have the adults library in one of these shops, the childrens in another, music in another? Solves the problem of a closed library and makes Sutton look like a more attractive place to shop as there seems to be more shops open.
Derek
That’s a good idea.
I’ll tell you what – let’s sell off the Town’s assets to pay for everything that’s needed. After all the Council Tax paid by the denizens of Sutton Coldfield goes nowhere near paying for what’s needed.
Anybody got any ideas of what else can be sold?
Let’s sell the water in the Sutton Park lakes to the South East to pay for painting yellow lines on the roads to make people park in the car parks – oh, they’ve been sold!!
Tom
Short term gain, long term pain. Let’s hope we have some councillors who have the sense to think of the long-term future of the town, rather than resorting to panic measures to try and fix this month’s problem.
Michael
Richard – I didnt realize that we still had to pay for the repairs even if the library moved. The red rose centre is such an ugly building tho, that and its adjoining car-park should be knocked down in an ideal world.
I like the idea of using some empty shops as the library, but dont think having them all separate would work, as parents will want to be in the adults section and there children in the childrens section where they can keep an eye on them. But they could use the inshops (market) its half empty as it is and seems big enough to hold a library.
Dominic
Using vacant shops is a great idea, even for the short term – bring the library onto the High Street instead of the somewhat hidden position it currently (doesn’t) occupy.
The proposed car park review (if I’m reading it correctly) seems to suggest that even after “disposal” of these three car parks there would still be 79 free spaces. There’s also the proposed 169 spaces on the Brassington Avenue site.
I’m not backing the idea of selling this land; but I also don’t see why any developers would want it, with the number of already vacant shops and offices in Sutton. Unless it’s for flats, but who’d want to look out over the train line or Chicken Cottage?
Richard
Regarding the use of shops I don’t know the figures but clearly it would mean BCC having to pay two lots of rent for a period, along with fit-out costs.
I agree that the flaw in the car park sale plan, which I support, is that it is hard to imagine purchasers. The Brassington Avenue fiasco shows that more flats are unlikely to be popular with developers. The Mill Street site is so small it is hard to think of any other use – and it is in the conservation area. It has been suggested to me (by Cllr. Philip Parkin) that planning conditions are imposed to force the construction of a bus station on Station Street. I can’t see that being popular either and it would need the active co-operation of BCC and WMT.
I hope that Najm, who I think attended the meeting, is able to provide some feedback.
najm
Hi All, there is an update following the constituency meeting.
http://suttoncoldfieldlocal.co.uk/special-constituency-meeting-update/