Old Library has more than monetary value

There is however, one key fact that was omitted regarding the story and that is that Warwickshire College paid a total of £97,100 to the county council in 1999 for the entire building and in looking to sell it on to the private market, stand to make a very large profit indeed.

In 2007 a developer was granted planning permission on the Old Library and the Gallery but this has since expired due, in our opinion, to the unsuitable nature of the building for that kind of use and the enormous problems posed by its Grade II-listed status.

It also must be remembered that the land and building were granted to Leamington many years ago in the understanding it remain forever in public use and there are specific covenants on the deed which would suggest this to be the case.

My point is simply this, with so many in the community involved in using the building on a daily basis and the importance of the activities taking place, shouldn’t there be a recognition of its true value to the town as a whole?

Forgetting the ethical and legal dilemmas about whether or not the building should have ever been sold in the first place, if we were offered a price like £97,100 for the Old Library we could look to raise that money independently and restore every square inch of it to serve the need for affordable community space and sustainable social enterprise in all its guises.

Call it the “big society” if you must but we just see it as doing what we’ve always done. - Clayton Denwood, Site Supervisor, Bath Place Community Venture.

* Editor’s note - Warwickshire College told the Courier that the £97,100 paid was for part of the building as it owned some of it already.