Levenshulme Facilities

Facilities lists related to the major redevelopment of sports, leisure and library provision that will take place in Levenshulme over the next two years are provided here. There are three documents, all provided as Microsoft Word document downloads:

  1. Levenshulme Facilities CURRENT v01
  2. Levenshulme Facilities PROPOSED v01
  3. Levenshulme Facilities COMBINED v01

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Community Meeting 28.06.13

Back to our usual meetings:
Friday 28th June, 19.00 @ Levenshulme Inspire

Come along and discuss the Baths, Library, development of the new facilities and Arcadia. And raise anything else you want to about what’s happening in Levenshulme.

A week off from campaigning

The next campaign meeting about the Baths, Library, Arcadia etc. will happen on Friday 28th June, 19.00 at Inspire on Stockport Road

We’re taking a week off to have some well deserved fun at the launch of the Levenshulme Food and Drink Festival on Friday 21st.

“Win, win, win all round” for Levenshulme Library.

Media coverage of the spectacular win for local campaigners in saving Levenshulme Library from closure.

(John McDougall, Mancunian Matters, 14 June 2013)

 

Victorious Manchester campaigners are rejoicing after plans were announced to save Levenshulme Library by working in partnership with a nearby school.
Levenshulme High School are to take over running the facility from Manchester City Council until a new library and leisure centre opens in Spring 2015.

Jeremy Hoad, chair of the Friends of Levenshulme Library, was delighted at the news and expressed relief that the facility has been saved.

“It’s win, win, win all round,” he told MM. “It means that the library is saved and protected for the next two years until the new library is opened. It does offer a sense of hope and a positive model that libraries can be saved. It provides everything we wanted, everything we could have hoped for and more for both now and the future.”

Read the full article HERE

The saving of Levenshulme Library

A blog post by novelist Paul Magrs on Levenshulme library being saved and the value of libraries.

View Paul’s blog here

Levenshulme Library is saved!

It was announced on Monday 10th June that Levenshulme Library will stay open for the next two years in its current building before being transferred to the new joint facility on Stockport Road in 2015 to sit alongside new gym, fitness facilities and swimming pools as part of a £6.5m investment in Levenshulme.

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Saving Levenshulme Library

Smiles all round as it is announced Levenshulme Library is saved through a partnership between Levenshulme High School for Girls, Community groups and Manchester City Council.

Photo (left to right) credit: Mark Waugh

  • Amanada Thain (Head, Levenshulme High School for Girls)
  • Jeremy Hoad (Chair, Friends of Levenshulme Library)
  • Councillor Nasrin Ali (Levenshulme)
  • Councillor Julie Reid (Gorton South)

saving levenshulme library announcement

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Levenshulme Library public meeting & announcement

There will be a public meeting at 19.00 on Monday 10th June at Inspire on Stockport Road regarding Levenshulme Library.

The meeting will be attended by Neil MacInnes, Head of Libraries, Information and Archives, who will make an announcement about the future of our library jointly with councillors and community members who have worked hard to find a solution to prevent the closure of our library.

Revealed, site where town hall will splash out on new leisure centre in Levenshulme

Town hall bosses have revealed their preferred location for the new Levenshulme leisure centre. The facility – set to replace the existing baths and library in 2015 – is planned for the current Arcadia sports centre site off Stockport Road. A report to be considered next month shows it would include a ground floor pool with a gym upstairs, as well as the new library.

(Manchester Evening News, 31st March 2013)

Read the full article HERE

Victorious baths campaigners host “pop up” library in Piccadilly Gardens

A new public library appeared for the afternoon on the lawns of Manchester’s Piccadilly Gardens.

Manchester Mule, 31st March 2013

Read the full article and watch the video HERE

 

Children heard a spirited reading of The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, Where the Wild Things Are and the Gruffalo, complete with a Gruffalo impersonation, in a “pop up” library built to protest library closures. The flatpack facility was the brainchild of campaigners from neighbourhoods across Manchester including Northenden, Levenshulme, Burnage and Fallowfield fighting to keep their libraries open.

Subject to consultation, up to six libraries across the city could go in the latest round of £80m cuts implemented by Manchester City Council after the Coalition government slashed its funding. A replacement library will be built in Levenshulme – but not for two years.

Levenshulme activist Valerie O’Riorden told Mule that campaigners had not heard confirmation whether the new library would be a like-for-like replacement. “And with the other libraries who aren’t getting a replacement facility in Burnage or Fallowfield or Northenden” she said, “they’ve heard nothing. As far as anyone’s concerned the libraries are shutting and they will be replaced with an outreach service and maybe a book collection point in a shop or something.”

Following on from the Protest events

Monday 11 February – 7:00 pm  –  Campaign Planning Meeting at Inspire

Tuesday 12 February – 5:00 pm onwards  –  Crowcroft Park Primary School
– Consultation drop-in session organised by the Council with Councillors
and senior officers to hear residents’ opinions and explain the
proposals in detail –

Wednesday 13 February – 10:00  –  Manchester City Council Executive
meeting at the Town Hall.  This meeting is open to members of the
public as observers.  By applying in advance and getting agreement,
members of the public may be invited to speak to specific items on the
Agenda.  Two members of the Levenshulme campaign have submitted a
request and it is expected that they will be called to speak at the
appropriate time.

Deputy Council Leader Jim Battle meets with Levenshulme campaigners

LCA facilitated a public meeting with Cllr Jim Battle who said he was impressed by the energetic actions of the campaign group who have been protesting about the proposed closures of both the Baths and the Library.

Councillor Battle confirmed that £6.5 million has been set aside from capital receipts of the Council for a new-build Joint Service centre which is due to be built by 2015 at a location somewhere in Levenshulme. He could not confirm where this is to be as the land was still under negotiation. He was asked to shepherd the negotiations for keeping open our vital and only public buildings until the new facilities are ready to use.

Two teams of campaigners have made recommendations about possible sources of funding which COULD be used to keep them open, but the use of Public Health money for the Baths and wider considerations about the whole city’s Libraries will be discussed in a series of Council meetings leading up to an Executive Committee meeting on 13th April, where final decisions about how to deal with the latest round of cuts will be made.

The Campaign group raised the serious impact on the area if either or both these public facilities are closed before the new one is opened.

We committed to keep up creative efforts to convince the Council to respect these needs of Levenshulme people.

LCA challenges proposal to close Levenshulme Library and Baths

LCA is working with a large group of campaigners and groups, like the Over 50s Swimming Club and Asian Ladies Swimming Group, who want to make sure the Council keeps the baths open and that they understand the need for privacy, which is the joy of having two pools at levy baths.

Library users are being asked to write letters as well as complete the Consultation forms to show what the Library means to each of us – not just a source of book borrowing, but a place to meet, a heart of our community.

Decisions will be taken in mid-April about keeping our Carnegie Library open until a new Library is established for Levenshulme. Please write to Cllr Richard Leese with your views. Copies can also come in to the LCA. Please sign the Petition available in POD and the Inspire Centre.