“Fed up” campaigners and residents will be holding yet another protest calling for the opening of Sherwood Library.
The new library in Spondon Street has been plagued by dozens of problems, from changing contractors, to over 100 defects, and a number of planned opening dates have come and gone.
A ‘sit and read’ event will be taking place outside the library at 10.30am on Saturday (September 6), with residents having missed out on their summer reading challenge due to the facility not being open.
A planned summer opening last year was missed, following the discovery of a raft of problems with the building.
Campaigners say there has been a “tug-of-war” game between Nottingham City Council and developer Hockley Developments, which built the new library with the help of contractors, ever since.
The council says it is still unable to commence the final fit-out due to the need for essential work on the building.
The authority has now threatened to take legal action against the developer, and promised to open a temporary facility in an announcement back in July.
Des Conway, of the Nottingham Save Our Services (SOS) campaign group, said: “I am getting fed up with this claim and the council needs to ‘put up or shut up’.
“Surely the imperative is to get the building snags remedied as soon as possible, and open the library and if they think they have a strong legal case, send the invoice to Hockley Developments, and take legal action if they don’t pay up.
“This back and forth blame game is now a complete embarrassment, especially for the city council, and I demand that our local library is made safe, and opened as soon as possible.
“And [council leader] Neghat Khan’s second point was in relation to her reference to finding interim temporary premises in Sherwood, pending resolution to the Spondon Street site.
“That promise is now seven weeks old, and I have heard nothing, either via the leader’s ‘My Nottingham’ emails or the regular ‘Nottingham Libraries Newsletter’ email.”
Back in January this year former executive member for leisure and culture, Cllr Sam Lux (Lab), claimed all defects had been resolved – and the council pledged to open the library in summer 2025.
