Community room in the Barbican library

By way of a reminder, in 2019-2020 the Barbican Association agreed to support an application for CIL neighbourhood funds* (CILNF) for the creation of a room in the Barbican library that could be used as a community room and made available to residents and residents’ groups and other community groups – on a similar model to the Artizan Street Library community room.

The Barbican Library itself had produced plans to convert some of its space into a community room some years earlier but hadn’t secured funds from the City, so it was suggested that with BA support there could be a bid for CILNF funds.

Background to the Library room proposal

The Barbican Estate itself has long lacked a community space: in the past a disused flat in one of the blocks has been used, as well as the old church hall by the columbarium – but this became unusable because of flooding and is now rented permanently to a children’s nursery.

Over the years the Barbican Association has campaigned for a proper community space that can be used by Barbican residents, and it is a topic that arises repeatedly at its Annual General Meetings. There is community space available on the nearby Golden Lane estate that is available to any City resident, but in the past it has been difficult to find out how to book it (albeit that is not the case now), but it is well used and therefore often not available.

When the City’s Housing Office moved to its current position within the Barbican Estate in 2006-7 and accommodation was built on level 02, the Lilac Room – a meeting space for the office – was made available for residents’ use. It is well used, but is mainly available only in the evenings, is an underground room with no lighting, has limited capacity, and is only useful for limited uses.

In 2016 the Barbican Association organised a public meeting for all residents in the northwest of the City (the Barbican, Golden Lane, and houses and blocks of flats within the surrounding wards), followed by a survey to assess demand. The public meeting was well attended and the survey got 242 responses, not all of them from the Barbican, which was considered a good response. Both the meeting and the survey results showed strong support for a community space for people living in the area.

The survey showed strong demand for a space that could be used for different community based activities – notably community organised activities, together with adult education and local clubs and societies, with some support for space that could provide for older people and people with long term conditions such as dementia and their carers. It also showed that most of those surveyed thought that the current provision for these activities was inadequate or poor.

Three models for providing community space were offered in the survey:

1)         a neighbourhood civic centre (combining public services and community space and uses)

2)         a community hall (like a traditional village hall) or

3)         a virtual community centre (a variety of spaces made available for community uses on a limited basis).

The neighbourhood civic centre was the most preferred option, with the virtual community centre the least favoured.

Although the proposed library community room doesn’t quite fit any of these models, it is the one closest to the neighbourhood civic centre model, being owned and run by the local authority and providing library services. “It would bring together publicly funded services…In addition there would be meeting rooms available at a low rate for community services.”

When the head of libraries put forward a proposal to turn space in the Barbican Library into a room for community use, similar to space that exists at Artizan Street Library, the Barbican Association gave the proposal its full support as it was thought that it would provide the sort of community facility the Association has been seeking for many years, for the benefit of residents in general, both in the Barbican Estate itself and in the surrounding area.

The bid

The initial bid was for funds to put together a project plan, finalise the design (the library had already done much of this work), get accurate costings, and get planning permission. The bid took some time to get approved (changes of City officers) but the money was granted in July 2021 and the work went ahead, led by Simon Cribbens in Community Services and Carol Boswarthack in the Library.

Discussions with the planners have determined that there is no need for a planning application (there is no change in use) but Listed Building Consent is needed.

The design work is completed (see details below*) and a planning application is about to be submitted in the next week or so. Quantity surveyors will produce costings, and once permission has been granted and the costs estimated, the BA in collaboration with the Library will put in a further bid for a CIL grant to fund the creation of the room.

The proposal

The proposal is to create a self-contained room in the south east corner of the library – in the area that currently forms a soft seating area within the arts reference library, overlooking the lakeside. It will be walled in to ensure it is screened from noise in the Barbican foyers and to create a self-contained space within the library.

It will have an entrance from the library but also a new entrance into the arts centre lobby to allow the room to be used outside library opening hours. Access out of hours will be by arrangement with the Arts Centre.

The room will accommodate up to 90 people, it will have a cupboard with chairs and tables to be used in the room, and there will be an overhead projector fixed adjacent to a lowered ceiling, with four speakers for the soundfield system.

The room can be booked by individuals or groups through the library. The library will charge but, as with the City’s other libraries, there will be a sliding scale in which residents pay the lowest, local community and charity organisations pay more, and commercial hirers pay the highest rate.