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- Опубликовано: 7 окт 2024
- Redbridge Central Library is one of the most well-visited libraries in the country. A focal point of the town centre development which took place in the 1980s it is a proven success both internally and externally. However, could it one day see its purpose switched to residential housing? The plans mooted in 2019 seem to have been quietly paused. Would you like the library to kept as it is or become part of a new multi-use leisure complex across the road?
Sources:
www.ilfordreco...
www.ilfordreco...
Ilford Historical Society
londonist.com/...
www.ilfordreco... 
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Amazing work, I love these uploads.
Thanks for the kind words. Great to have you along to reminisce
The plans you mention, which gladly, are on hold for now, to convert the library into "affordable" flats is on which I hope does not come to fruition but I fear in an age of profits before most other things, this will go through once their long term plan to erode the services to a point where no one will notice or care what has been lost to us all. Keep up your great work to enrich us with knowledge.
Always nice to have you join us for the trip into the past. If there is enough opposition to such plans and the will to keep services running as they are in the buildings for which they were intended, that would hopefully mean such a plan is not undertaken. To combine the three leisure services into a single building would cost a huge amount of money and for the result to mean moving the library 50 feet across the road would seem gravely wasteful.
I still remember when this was happening and when the library opened. Seeing it also has a museum I might just have a brief visit upon my next visit this month
Well worth paying a visit although please note that the museum is being refurbished at the moment. Hopefully by the end of the year it will be open with a whole new range of artefacts.
@@IlfordRetro OK thanks for letting me know. Will look out for it soon. Nonetheless be back upon a visit a a ritual
If memory serves me correctly (it's been many many many many years) in the other side of the pedestrian underpass by the new library was a large car park.
The surface was just crushed rubble and shoppers & commuters used to park there.
I can't remember what the charge was ( if they DID charge), but eventually the Cineworld complex was built on the site.
You are absolutely right about that. Once the houses were pulled down on Oakfield Road, car parks were created and for many years lay undeveloped. I think some were actually free. I know it seems a long time ago, but it was ONLY just over 20 years ago that Cineworld was built! That's relatively recent in my humble opinion 😅
Now we can look back on 1983 and see very clearly that we couldn’t possibly have known what the demands of the 21st century would be. I think, however, that it was a very good attempt, judged by the attributes you highlight in your very interesting video.
You're right. One thing I find fascinating between then and now is the provision for a record (and later CD) lending library which was on the second floor. Who knew that physical media would one day become obsolete due to downloading and streaming via a telephone connection?! The library has thankfully moved with the times in that respect, unlike businesses such as Blockbuster video which simply disappeared.
I don't see the need to knock down the existing Library. Especially when it would be difficult to covert said building into flats.
Yes the information in the Recorder article at the time wasn't very detailed about how a library conversion might work or whether extensive remodelling would be required to make it habitable.
@@IlfordRetro
I suspect that Redbridge Council (when the article was written) had not yet worked out how to convert the Library Building into flats. I also suspect that they quietly scrapped the plans once they worked out how much work was actually needed.
Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if they concluded that the most viable option was to simply knock down the existing building and build a block of flats in its place.
@@MrSmith1984 You're probably right about all that. It would seem an awkward building to convert and the logic of the overall plan may have been scrutinised a bit more thoroughly after the initial plan was put forward. I hope they don't conclude that a tower block should be built there instead though, and keep the high rise zoning to Ilford Hill and the Lynton House areas.
@@IlfordRetro
And to be honest, it would be daft to knock down the library building (& build a new one for the sake of it) when said building is very much fit for purpose.
The best solution would be to relocate the Council Offices in the Lynton Road Tower Blocks to a redeveloped Kenneth Moore Theatre site and instead covert (or rebuild) the Lynton Road Tower Blocks into housing.
@@MrSmith1984 Yes, that idea sounds far more sensible.
Typical Redbridge Council - they always promise more than they know they can deliver (the 2019 plan - how could you fit a library a swimming pool and a theatre into the fairly small space that is the old KM theatre?). Perhaps an early Wes Streeting dream? - Streeting, the Walter Mitty of politics, the only "single parent family child" with two parents, both of whom he has lived with.
A scathing review! I doubt it was too much to do with the MPs but an over-eager council cabinet and Regeneration department. Yes it does seem a small plot of land on which to creat a three-way leisure complex. Separating crowds/visitors when events clashed would be a logistical headache.
Shaaaaaaaraaapppp
@@IlfordRetro No I doubt Streeting was involved but he would promise the world to get his backside on the chair round the cabinet table.
If it DID ever get developed one would assume it would be a multi-storey development .
Swimming pool on the ground level ( because of the weight)
Library on the next floors ( again because of the weight) and theatre on upper levels with changing rooms and plenty of room to swing a cat.
@@zaphodbeeblebrox6627 I think you're right about that sort of layout. A small footprint with lots above it. I think it would result in congestion of people accessing the disparate services at all sorts of times though. Different entrances for each may solve some of that, but yet it remains a relatively small plot for several activities to take place on. I expect the trade off between end result and cost doesn't make it economically viable.