The below is a statement from the Friends of Library Walk. For Confidential's take on the link building, click here.

Campaigners who fought to save Library Walk in Manchester remain defiant. Although they lost the battle to save the beloved right of way they say a range of important issues were uncovered which could not be considered by The Planning Inspector. They are now exploring other ways to pursue these complaints.

The link building is ugly, unwanted and an act of cultural vandalism

Manchester City Council (MCC) granted themselves Planning Permission to build on public land without outside scrutiny. With no effective opposition party one would expect them to behave meticulously as there is a clear conflict of interest but this was not the case. It is clear a citizen would not be able to behave in the manner they have done.  In particular we would like to highlight:

  1. The decision to build over a Right of Way before permission was granted was extremely risky’ £3.5million of tax payers money was gambled – but no financial risk assessment was ever carried out. The Council appeared unaware of Government guidance NOT to build across a public highway before permission is obtained.

  2. Lack of proper consultation with the community and to consider the wider public interest. The Library Walk link building was not included in any public consultation and so the earliest opportunity to dissent was at the planning meeting.  Experts in architecture, planning, and heritage united with hundreds of local residents to present hard evidence and passionate love for Library Walk but were consistently ignored by MCC.

  3. There were a string of administrative errors – absent signatures, misquoting of law, and contravening the Councils own constitution. It remains unclear who actually signed off the work on Library Walk. MCC also contravened their own guidelines regarding accessible design – meaning  some disabled people will be disadvantaged by the work carried out. More recently a line of bollards and gate posts, not revealed previously, have appeared. These will further impede access.

The wayThe way things used to be: glorious
 
PointlessLibrary Walk:pointless

Library Walk is a place of international importance; testimony at the Inquiry included a range of experts. It also gave local people a chance to say how important Library Walk was to them. Ironically the link building, designed by Ian Simpson Architects, appeared to be leaking for some time during construction. There were buckets and a roped off area in the Library.

Morag Rose, of Friends of Library Walk, says “The link building is ugly, unwanted and an act of cultural vandalism.  Although we believe we have a strong case for Judicial Review of the Planning Inspectors Decision we have not been able to proceed due to the high financial risk and time involved. Sadly, Judicial Review is not for ordinary people. However, we are determined to highlight the many troubling issues we uncovered, and will fight to make the council accountable and fair. MCC fell very short of the high standards of conduct citizens expect and we want lessons to be learnt from this.”

Melissa Moore was also a witness at the Inquiry and says “Library Walk has illustrated how public interest appears to be dictated by public authorities not driven by public opinion. It was disappointing to see how little passion for Manchester was employed by the Planning Department and how they genuinely didn’t seem to be able to understand our argument about people, space and heritage.”

Friends of Library Walk wish to express our heartfelt thanks to everyone for the amazing support we have been shown. We are confident time will prove us right, eventually the carbuncle will come down and the people will once again be able to enjoy the beauty of Library Walk. In the meantime we have lost the guaranteed right to access this beautiful civic space. The council's intention to permit access is not protected in law and could change in the future but we will be watching

We remain determined to fight to preserve public space, our heritage and the places that matter to people. This story must be a wake-up call for the city. Those responsible for stewardship of our historic buildings and city streets have failed us spectacularly on this occasion. We must demand better in future.