Work so far on the Old York Road Library

You will have seen in the local paper recently, and in the latest Lib Dem leaflet, that both Labour and Lib Dems are claiming the credit for getting a temporary roof fitted to this landmark Grade II Listed Building to prevent further damage and decay to the fabric of this building.



Well here are some pictures on the quality of the work which has been done so far which we do not believe either of our local politicians will be willing to claim the credit for, since it is clearly very shoddy and substandard, paying only the barest lip-service to the intentions of both the Council officers and local residents to save this building in spite of its present owner.

    

Schedule 1 attached to urgent works notice

1. Remove all existing slate from the roof and place inside the building.
2. Provide reinforcement to damaged roof structures to allow safe working and to support temporary roof described below.
3. Line valleys with lapped heavy gauge Visqueen DPC or single-ply rubber membrane, held down with continuous strap laths laid along the length of the valleys.  The visqueen or alternative should an upstand of a minimum of 300mm and should dressed into the gullies to ensure discharge of rainwater into down pipes.     
4. Cover all roofs in heavy gauge Visqueen DPC membrane, all membrane to be lathed at 300mm centres. Visqueen will be laid so that there is a continuous run from the sarking membrane down into the valleys.
5. Tower to be covered with Visqueen
6. Clear down pipes and gullies and refix missing sections of down pipe in UPVC sufficient to ensure that rainwater discharges to the gullies.  
7. Fix steel door inside existing sheeting to rear door.

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Refers to point 4


The plastic sheeting in the middle roof is lifting, revealing the wooden roof slats - how is this supposed to make the roof watertight?






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Refers to point 4

Here you can clearly see that the plastic sheeting has completely pulled away from the staircase - and this before the jobs is even finished.



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Refers to point 6

Here you can quite clearly see that no drain collection box has been fitted to the down drainpipe leaving any rainfall actually collected from the roof  to run down the walls, internally or externally.  It is also clear that the holes punched in the fabric of the building by the scaffolders have simply been left to open further damaging the  building

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You can see the many holes punched in the windows to make room for the scaffolding poles have been left completely open, no attempt has been made to board them up and pigeons are roosting in the the building.  Clearly no attempt whatsoever has been made to make this building even minimally watertight



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Windows have been either broken or removed to accommodate scaffolding poles, since they have not been either replaced or boarded where this has happened we have not confidence that this will be the case here.



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Trees and shrubs cut down close to the building to give the scaffolders access have been piled up and left, along with an accumulation of other rubbish posing a fire hazard to the building.

Please click here to see the written answers to our questions raised by COVEN at the Inner East Area Committee Meeting on the Old Library building, its sale and maintenance.  It lists what should have been done in Schedule 1, it is apparent that on point 4 and 6 this clearly has not happened.  It also states that damage caused by the need to erect scaffolding will be repaired but it is clear that it has not been and the scaffolding has now been removed so it is not going to be done either.

It also raises questions about how this building, while in council therefore residents ownership, was allowed to deteriorate to such a state that it sold for so very little before being allowed to deteriorate to its present pitiable condition.

The old York Road Library

Despite the wildly exaggerated claims in the latest Lib Dem leaflet it was in fact the COVEN campaign which kick started the drive to save the Old York Road Library and got the landlord to reluctantly undertake the necessary work to protect the fabric of this Grade II listed building with an energetic and vociferous campaign led entirely by and driven by local residents.

Attempts to get answers about the Old York Road Library and its future through the Richmond Hill Forum (chaired by the Lib Dems) since 2008 had failed miserably and emails from that time to Cllr Hollingsworth on this subject show that the whole matter was hopelessly stalled and going nowhere at that point so COVEN, a local pressure group made up of concerned residents, themselves went on the offensive; we wrote letters and sent emails to the relevant people; interested the Victorian Society; English Heritage; The Civic Trust; the Inner East Area Committee and our local MP in the case. We lobbied hard through this Blog, You Tube, local press, Guardian Leeds and East Leeds FM and even met with the head of Rushbond, a property developer with an interest in the area, trying to bring about a satisfactory solution and stop the building from rotting away.

Eventually the sustained pressure paid off and a meeting was arranged with Cllr Graham Hyde (Lab), Cllr Richard Brett (Lib Dem), Phil Ward, Team Leader Conservation at the Sustainable Development Unit and council officer Richard Fenton at which COVEN put forward such a convincing case for saving the building from further damage that Cllrs Hyde and Brett agreed to take the case to Cllr Richard Lewis (Lab) who managed to secure the necessary funding to undertake the work needed if the landlord refused to do it, and this was the key to getting the work done!

If any one person can justifiably claim the credit for this success it would be Sam Hirst of COVEN who has campaigned tirelessly for several years to preserve this building and chronicled its sad decline in pictures and video but, in truth, I think that Sam would be the first to say that saving the Old York Road Library was a community effort, no one person and certainly no one party can claim the credit.

What this area really needs now is more community engagement and less party political points scoring. We know there is an election coming but it would be a solid achievement for the residents of Richmond Hill if, just for once, the councillors put the residents' best interests ahead of party political advantage. We need our councillors to work together for the good of our area and to leave the rest of the party political nonsense behind. Perhaps celebrate the fact that a bunch of committed local activists, with help from councillors of all parties and council officials, local and national organisations, our local MP, and with the help of local media all worked together to save one of the few remaining iconic buildings left in Richmond Hill, pat each other on the back if necessary but learn the lesson that if this area is going to succeed the politicians are going to have to put their constituents needs ahead of their party's - so no claiming credit for this achievement from one political party - this was a perfect example of a community led joint effort delivering the right outcome which may not go down well at party headquarters but is going down well where it really matters - here with the residents!