Drumbrae Library and Community Hub
The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-01644, in the name of Colin Keir, on Drumbrae library and community hub project. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament welcomes the construction of the Drum Brae Library and Community Hub project, which was successfully completed on time in November 2011 and which will be open to the public in early 2012; notes that the three-storey community-purpose building, which will include a long-awaited new library, a day-care centre for older people and office facilities, is the first project to be developed as part of the hub South East Scotland programme; believes that the hub, which is planned to be easily accessible via regular bus services, will be a real focal point for the Drum Brae, Clermiston, Clerwood, East Craigs and Parkgrove communities; further notes that the project aims to offer a wide range of services, including an adult learning facility, community information and access points and a health information point; commends the City of Edinburgh Council’s ambition to encourage community involvement, community-based activity and the building of social capital, and believes that the joint initiative of public and private sectors supported local economic growth and boosted construction industry employment.
17:04
Yesterday was a fantastic day: it was the culmination of 40 years of campaigning in Drumbrae, Clermiston and Parkgrove. During that time, the people in those areas were promised a library; it had been in a number of manifestos, but for whatever reason the plan had never come to fruition. It is a community project that so many people have fought for, and some did not live to see the day when the library opened.
The building was opened as a hub, not just a library. The council officers who were in attendance tell me that on the opening day, from when the hub opened at 10 o’clock to when it closed, more than 1,000 people visited it. When I was there between 10 o’clock and 12 o’clock, there were children, mums and dads with prams, and pensioners, all going into the building that they had been promised.
The building represents a fantastic achievement by many people who have campaigned for a number of years, and I will mention a few of them. There have been few campaigners more vociferous in their actions than Reg Kingman, the chair of Drumbrae community council. I should mention with regard to my entry in the register of interests that I am still a member of the City of Edinburgh Council. My Liberal Democrat colleague on the council, Councillor Robert Aldridge, is a long-term campaigner for the project, and a number of other people—there are too many to mention—have also been involved.
The Drumbrae library hub cost £5.7 million. It is the first hub to be delivered by the Scottish Futures Trust hub scheme, and we are delighted that, in opening to the public yesterday, it came in on time and on budget.
The hub was commissioned following a discussion between the administration partners on the City of Edinburgh Council in 2007. Since then, the planning took place and the parties agreed on where they wanted to go. I was delighted to see that, because of all the interest, so many people came on board through the consultation and eventually got the project off the ground.
More than 700 members of the public took part in the consultation on the hub, which is a superb advertisement for community engagement. After looking at the faces of the children yesterday, I can tell you that it was a huge success, and there is a fantastic opportunity for those who use the library to make it work.
The hub is designed as a one-stop shop: it offers a variety of services under the same roof. Having council services available in the community will ensure that they become more efficient. It is not just a library: on going through the building, we find the children’s section at the bottom, the cafeteria and the community rooms. Moving upstairs, there are more community rooms and the computer workshops, and on the top floor there are the City of Edinburgh Council offices that hold the west neighbourhood management team, which is led by Natalie Hoy. I commend her for leading her team through the process of commissioning and getting the library and hub ready for use yesterday.
Not only will the council officers be there to provide a full range of council services, but the police will be in attendance, too. The local community safety team has been a fantastic success in the area for a number of years, and moving the team from Chesser House to the hub office at Drumbrae has enabled it to work more efficiently in the area to which it is committed.
A community care centre, which is part of the hub, will bring better facilities to those who are presently in Clermiston House and the Tower nursing homes. The facilities will mean that those people are not kept apart from the rest of the community. There are large window screens so that people can safely see how things are progressing outside without fearing for their safety. They might be a little bit nervous about mixing with youngsters, but they can see what is happening and they will have a wonderful garden outside too.
The on-going communication project has been first rate—it has been fantastic. The community has been involved from start to finish and, as I said earlier, 700 local residents took the time to make the consultation work. Information has been distributed through the community council, and local children drew a mural depicting the services that the hub will provide. It is a fantastic building and a fantastic achievement. Even local colleges that are looking to undertake outreach programmes have been in contact to use the hub. It will be a major success.
Back in the dark days of the 1970s, when I was but a 10-year-old—people out there may remember that—
Only 10?
I was 10 once and I even had some hair, like Mr McLetchie.
I remember running across the road from Drum Brae Terrace, where I grew up, running 300yd down the road, across the park and then across the street to the mobile library, where I put my book down. The man behind the counter said, “You won’t have to do that for much longer, son, because they’re talking about building a library.” I blame the Tories, who were in power at the time. I look forward to Mr McLetchie answering that.
I will not go into the details of the finance—I am sure that the minister will be able to enlighten us on that—or into the technicalities. All that I will say is that there is real partnership working between the council, the Scottish Futures Trust and other partners. We have made a huge success with £5.7 million in difficult economic circumstances, and we now have what is probably the best hub or centre in the city of Edinburgh.
I would have liked to address a number of other issues, but the best thing for me to do at this point is sit down with a smile on my face and thank members for attending and taking part in the debate.
17:12
I congratulate Colin Keir on securing the debate. Although I live in the Borders and am happy to do so, I grew up in an area very close to Drumbrae—East Craigs, which will also benefit from the library. Many of my friends, my family and their neighbours have, up to now, had to visit places such as Blackhall to use a lending library, so the new library will be a huge benefit to the community.
On the scope of the project, it is great that it contains a wide diversity of elements including the library, the adult learning facilities, the day-care centre that will cater for older people and the offices that Colin Keir specified. It will be a genuine focal point for the community of Drumbrae, Parkgrove and East Craigs, which is very much to be welcomed. I defer the constituency matters to Colin Keir; I will talk about the principle of the SFT and why this is a positive development for Scotland, not just for Edinburgh.
This is the first project to be delivered by the Scottish Futures Trust. It is part of the south-east hub that covers five local authorities and is due to connect up to £300 million of projects over its life. In the South Scotland region, there are two relevant projects: the Gullane surgery and day-care centre, which will open shortly, and the Haddington joint campus primary school project, which is well under way and is due to be completed in October. That will be the first hub primary school to be developed by the Scottish Futures Trust, which is also extremely positive. Alex Neil has visited the site and the project has been warmly welcomed in East Lothian.
The SFT has the capacity to unlock other sources of finance—crucially, at a much lower cost and a more cost-effective rate in comparison with the public-private partnerships and private finance initiatives that went before. I have met the procurement professionals who are involved with the Scottish Futures Trust not only at a briefing session for MSPs, at which Malcolm Chisholm was also present, but in the course of the Finance Committee’s inquiries. We have heard from Barry White and Angus Grossart about their proposals and the benefits that they are bringing to capital investment in Scotland.
The project is doing much to pump-prime a struggling construction sector in Scotland. In last week’s stage 1 debate on the Budget (Scotland) Bill, we heard that the SFT and the non-profit-distributing model are supplementing an otherwise declining capital budget and allowing the Scottish Government to maintain its capital spend, which is providing great sustenance to the construction sector.
The SFT’s procurement expertise is delivering substantial savings in commissioning projects. By last June, an estimated £129 million of savings had been identified. Of course, we are aware of the significant savings that are being generated on the Forth crossing budget, which have enabled the Scottish Government to unlock additional funds for matters as diverse as early years services and the digital futures fund.
The SFT is helping to generate substantial savings. As Colin Keir said, it delivered the project on time and under budget, which is very much to be welcomed. The procurement expertise is bearing fruit in the delivery of projects and in keeping them within their budget, which has been a constant concern in past public procurement projects.
I am conscious of the time, so I will just commend the Drumbrae project and express my hope that it will bring great benefit to the people of Drumbrae, East Craigs, Parkgrove and Edinburgh as a whole.
17:16
I congratulate Colin Keir on bringing the motion to the Parliament for debate. Clearly, his area is not in my constituency, but I can share vicariously in the obvious pleasure that he took from the hub’s opening a few days ago. When he was talking, my mind went back to two weeks ago, when the rebuilt Royston Wardieburn community centre in my constituency was opened. That great occasion brought enormous pleasure to the whole local community.
I pay tribute to the City of Edinburgh Council for the community hub. I know that we spend a lot of time on criticising the council—I flag up concerns about the library service in Edinburgh more generally—but we must pay tribute to it when good achievements are realised. It is clear that the Drumbrae hub is one such example and the Royston Wardieburn community centre is another.
The hub concept is not new, although the funding is different and is worth remarking on. In the past few years, people have tried to emulate the idea of having more services in the local community and having different services in the same location. I remember—it seems quite a long time ago now—that I visited more than one such hub when I was a minister. The one in Dalmellington—which is not far from your constituency, Presiding Officer—is a fine example. We should all support the idea of co-locating as many services as possible in local communities, but the hub model involves a different way of financing that.
Colin Keir focused on the hub that has been built, but he shares with me an interest in the proposed north-west Edinburgh partnership centre, which would be on the edge of his constituency and would serve my constituency. The plans for that throw up two problems with the hub model. I am certainly not against that model in principle and I will be pleased if it can deliver, but the time that some such projects are taking to come to fruition seems to be a problem. People in Pilton in my constituency and in Muirhouse in Colin Keir’s constituency are frustrated and keep saying, “And what about this centre?” because we have talked about it for a long time. Having talked this week to Peter Gabbitas, who is now heading the project as the City of Edinburgh Council’s director of health and social care, I know that movement is afoot. I hope that we will have a report on good progress soon. It is frustrating that some such projects take so long to get together.
Without getting too political, I will say that people should be honest about the hub. It is a variant of private finance. It is a little bit different from PPP, but it is not as different as some people think. The principle is the same—private money will be used and will be paid back annually. We all accept that model, but we should be up front and honest about what is involved.
My main interest is to keep arguing for the north-west partnership centre, which will have a much bigger health service presence than the Drumbrae centre has. Council services, the health service and, I hope, other services will all be co-located in the community, which is consistent with the general direction of health policy as well as other policies. We need to get as many services as possible in local communities and, ideally, in new buildings that people will take pleasure in using, which will mean that they are more likely to access the services. That is particularly necessary in north-west Edinburgh because of the increasing population at the waterfront. I am sure that Colin Keir and I will both continue to campaign for that.
Of course, today is Drumbrae’s day, and I acknowledge what the council has achieved there. I pay tribute to it and once again thank Colin Keir for securing this debate.
I apologise to the minister as I am hosting an event in the Parliament and will probably have to leave at half past 5.
17:20
I welcome the debate and thank Colin Keir for bringing it to the chamber. I am not sure that I welcome this growing Scottish National Party trend to refer to my baldness and antiquity, but I will try to put up with it with good humour, as I am sure that you would, Presiding Officer, were it directed at you.
I would like to start by joining with other members who have welcomed the opening of the facility. It is an important project, not only because it provides a new public library for people in that part of Edinburgh but because it is representative of broader changes in how we provide public services. As we have heard, Drumbrae library is at the core of a community hub, a number of which are presently either in construction or awaiting funding. Like the recently opened Bathgate partnership centre, it brings together a range of services from various council departments and other public service providers in the one location.
Of course, the hubs and proposed hubs vary in their make-up, with one alternative example being the collaboration that is pending between NHS Lothian and the City of Edinburgh Council to bring general practitioner and social care services together in the new Wester Hailes healthy living centre, a concept with which I have had some familiarity over the years.
Notwithstanding the differences between hubs, the overall aim of providing a one-stop shop for communities is laudable. Bringing together a library, a day-care centre and the council and police neighbourhood teams in the one building in Drumbrae makes sense. Moreover, that multifunctionality is important not only in terms of convenience to the public but because it will encourage greater co-ordination and partnership working between agencies, which should mean the delivery of a better service all round. Even in this age of information technology and remote access, there are still considerable and tangible benefits to be derived from having people physically working together in the one centre.
We should not forget that, at the heart of this project, is a new library for Drumbrae, which has been sought by the local community for a long time—more than 40 years, as Colin Keir indicated in his opening speech.
There has been an important change in libraries—I say that although I fear that it might be a tacit acknowledgment of one’s own advancing years to recall an age when libraries were for borrowing books. Along with the more than 23,000 books that are to be found in the new Drumbrae library, there will be a large bank of personal computers and other digital equipment that will facilitate everything from music production to basic animation. It is truly a brave new world for our libraries, which have adapted enthusiastically to changing times and tastes and new technology.
However, it is not all about IT, and nor should it be. Libraries are not playstations. They are about reading for pleasure and learning. I loved going to the library when I was growing up, and that is one of the reasons why, as an MSP, I have always been keen to support and promote the summer reading programmes that were run by staff at Wester Hailes and Currie libraries, and at others throughout the city.
It was the great American news anchorman Walter Cronkite who said:
“Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.”
How true. That is why we should welcome the opening of the new Drumbrae library and community hub, which will ensure that present and future generations have the opportunity and the encouragement to learn.
17:24
I thank Colin Keir for securing the debate and I, too, welcome the Drumbrae library hub, which opened yesterday. As my colleague Paul Wheelhouse stated, it was the first community project to get under way since the south-east hub—a partnership between the health board and the council—was formed in August 2010. The hub initiative, which is supported by the Scottish Futures Trust, promotes and encourages public bodies to work together to deliver better public buildings and enhanced public services for communities throughout Scotland. Those new buildings can provide a focal point for the community, give it a sense of ownership, and save the public purse money through the use of modern materials and shared services.
The Wester Hailes healthy living centre, which is in my constituency, is another hub project. It is the first hub development in the Edinburgh area that has the aim of providing long-term improvements in healthcare to the local community. The Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Cities Strategy, Nicola Sturgeon, and I recently attended the Wester Hailes healthy living centre turf-cutting event, where I met constituents and local healthcare staff who have campaigned over many years for new health facilities to be built in the area. There was an obvious sense of achievement among the residents who turned out to witness the occasion.
The new three-storey facility is being built on the site of the high-rise flats that were demolished in the early 1990s. The land had lain derelict ever since then. The long-overdue project is therefore welcome, and it will help to kick-start the regeneration of a forgotten corner of the Harvesters Way area. The new centre, which will cover 5,000m2 at a cost of around £9.5 million and is due for completion in August 2013, will provide a one-stop shop of health and social care services, and will deliver high-quality services in a more co-ordinated and efficient manner to the people of Wester Hailes. The range of services will include the general practitioner practice, district nurse and health visitor services, health and social care staff services, a children and families practice team, and the Wester Hailes health agency. The project is the first major investment in community facilities in Wester Hailes for a number of years, and they are eagerly awaited by the local population.
Another of the initial hub projects that are due to be built by the south-east hub is the Firrhill partnership centre, which will include the Craiglockhart and Firrhill medical practices and community nursing, podiatry, older people’s mental health, learning disabilities, community mental health and paediatric services. The new centre will address some of the anxiety among residents that they are being bypassed in the provision of modern local services. I therefore look forward to 2013, when my constituents and I can welcome the opening of the Wester Hailes healthy living centre and, I hope, witness the sod cutting at the new Firrhill partnership centre.
17:28
I, too, congratulate Colin Keir on securing the debate. On the welcome that we should give the facility, there can be no better explanation of its importance than his comment that 1,000 people were there when it opened.
People in the local community have wanted the facility for a long time so I, too, congratulate that community on running such a long and successful campaign. In the end, we have a fantastic set of facilities in the same building, which is definitely to be welcomed. I know that the community campaigned for many years and that it had concerns about some of the details. It is important that it was involved in the design of the facility so that it meets people’s needs. That is an important principle in local planning.
The west of the city has grown substantially over the past 20 to 40 years. I was brought up in the west of the city, but went away for a few years. When I came back, a large chunk of city had appeared in my absence and the whole area needed new facilities. The library facilities and the sports facilities that have been provided recently in particular were needed in an area in which there was huge development through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
I very much welcome the project—particularly for the range of facilities that are being provided together. I echo David McLetchie’s comments; we should welcome the joined-up nature of the project. We want that in other parts of the country. It is very much worth celebrating. The inclusion of adult learning, community information, access projects, the health information point and the day-care centre is significant in terms of providing joined-up facilities for the local community. The day-care centre is particularly important, given the changing demographics—which would probably come up in a debate about health—and the growing number of people who are living well into their 70s, 80s and 90s.
I welcome the opportunity of a day-care centre that can be shaped locally and which can meet people’s social needs by giving them a chance to get together and socialise at a time of life when many will be living on their own, living much longer than would have been the case in the past, and not living near their families. The location of the day-care facility beside the library is great, because people who go to the day-care facility as local residents or as people who are brought by their families will also want to use the library on the same trip.
The fact that there is a cafe in the library is particularly good. In some ways, it is surprising that we do not have cafes in libraries, but I suppose that it goes back to the whole ethos at the time when they were set up and were intended for books, for studying and for thinking. The ability to socialise once one has visited the library, but not necessarily in among the books, is an interesting development that is worth supporting.
In a time of recession, libraries come into their own. The ability to read and learn for free is something hugely important that we should fight for. The range of 23,000 new books is fantastic, but that local stock is not all that will be accessible to people in Drumbrae library, because they will be able to call up books from within the whole Edinburgh library network. They will also be able to access expensive books about art, science and technology that cost £40, £50 or £60.
On multimedia, David McLetchie hinted at DVDs, CDs and the capacity to use the internet. The ability to use all those things for free is important at a time when people do not have a lot of money. Also, I do not underestimate the importance of free access to newspapers and magazines. I can see that the magazines and newspapers are also used in my local library in Stockbridge. With magazines costing £4 or £5, it all adds up to a lot of money for people on restricted incomes. Access to IT facilities enables people to use the internet to draft a curriculum vitae and to see what jobs are available. If people can go online, they can easily access websites such as Goodmoves, which is opening up a world of opportunities to the people who live in Drumbrae.
The fact that the library is on bus routes is vital. Anyone who knows Drumbrae will know that a bus service is absolutely fundamental for someone who wants to get there and is not particularly mobile or lives slightly further away. I praise the wisdom of finding a site that is on a decent bus route.
I am glad that local kids were consulted. Getting kids into libraries is absolutely crucial in getting them to enjoy books and to see libraries as places they can go for information, for pleasure, or for doing school projects. For me, as for Colin Keir some time ago, access to a library—in my case, in Blackhall—was hugely important. I loved being able to go every week, when there was always a new set of books that I could borrow. Kids love the fact that the choice is unlimited because there are more books than they can ever read and they get to pick which ones they want. Libraries are hugely important for children in getting them into the culture of thinking, reading books and—now—using the internet.
This is a great project that is integrated with local services such as housing and environmental services and the police. A good, strong local community needs strong local services, and the fact that they are accessible to people is something to be celebrated.
17:34
I would like to draw members’ attention to my entry in the register of members’ interests as a member of the City of Edinburgh Council.
I thank Colin Keir for bringing this debate to the chamber. I, too, thank all the community volunteers and council officers who have brought this multifaceted project to fruition. It has been a real partnership project that has involved local people from the start. It is fitting that we highlight the good work that has gone on at Drumbrae and it is important that we proudly welcome the refurbishment, renewal and new provision of libraries. The wonderful transformation of the traditional old library in Edinburgh’s Morningside has also delighted many dedicated users of what was a much-loved but very tired library.
Our libraries provide so many opportunities to so many people that it is essential that we maintain and enhance what they offer, and I am sure that Drumbrae and its one-stop shop approach will be used as an inspirational model for future projects. The cafe is a welcome addition. Commercial booksellers have offered such facilities for some time, and now we have one to rival them.
The current funding pressures mean that local authorities across the board are considering what kind of library service they can offer, as well as what kind of library service increased IT literacy and IT usage demand. I am sure that Colin Keir and other Lothian colleagues are aware that the City of Edinburgh Council’s consultation on a strategy to inform the next three years of library usage has just concluded.
It is important that we hear and listen to current views. I have already been contacted by constituents who are concerned by proposals that would close libraries across Edinburgh on Sundays and would end late-night Thursday opening. They are concerned that an effort to standardise opening hours will result not in standardisation, but in reduction.
I am sure that there is agreement across the parties that, with household budgets being squeezed ever tighter and with increased unemployment, the opportunity that our libraries provide to access knowledge and increase learning has never been so important. Libraries have an important part to play in reducing inequality.
Increasing digital access to our libraries is welcome. The way that people access information is changing, but we must bear in mind the fact that many homes do not yet have internet access for a variety of reasons—low income being one of them.
Many students—young and old—do not have access to a quiet and appropriate place to study and work without interruption. Therefore, although Edinburgh’s proposed strategy focuses on use of technology and the internet, it is important that we ensure that people across Lothian—and, indeed, throughout Scotland—have the kind of library access that Drumbrae provides. We must ensure that they are able to access services outwith standard workplace and learning hours in order to optimise the potential benefits that our libraries provide.
Our libraries are an essential part of all our communities, and I am pleased to contribute to a debate that celebrates their value to us all.
17:37
This has been an informative debate on a specific project and on the importance of libraries in the modern world. I congratulate Colin Keir on bringing the topic to the Parliament and sharing his enthusiasm for the project. I also congratulate members on all the speeches in the debate.
Colin Keir claims to have been 10 years old in the 1970s. I am a wee bit younger and was probably just a glint in my father’s eye then, so I am not aware of the intricacies of the campaign, but I am well versed in the time that projects take to reach fruition and completion, such is their nature. Therefore, I commend and congratulate everyone who was involved in the Drumbrae library hub project. It is a good model and a good example of the public sector working together to realise a project that had popular support.
It is timely that Saturday is national libraries day. I wonder whether the opening event was targeted to be close to that day.
As members commented, libraries are far more than places to borrow books. The Drumbrae library and community hub is also far more than a library, as important as that is. It is testimony to its popularity that, as Sarah Boyack mentioned, more than 1,000 people attended the opening. That is a clear indicator of support.
It is also encouraging that 700 local residents participated in the consultation on the design of the project. It is important to note that, if local people are involved in designing their own future, the end product should be far better for that.
The Drumbrae library and community hub was a £5.7 million project, which has been delivered through the Scottish Futures Trust hub scheme. There is much more to follow. Reassuringly, it was on time and on budget. The hub is a one-stop shop that brings together the public sector to provide services in a particular area. With its emphasis on place, it is delivering in a very physical way the policy and direction of the Government around the agenda on place and integration of public services. We often hear politicians talk about how we should move towards co-location; the hub represents the physical embodiment of the integration of services, and it will ensure that different parts of the public sector work together right across the sector.
David McLetchie mentioned the evolving nature of public facilities and how libraries have adapted over time. That is true. Paul Wheelhouse covered PFI and PPP, which Malcolm Chisholm would not necessarily agree with him on, but there is a difference between the hub model and PPP as regards how the profit is distributed, how the projects are run and where ownership ultimately lies.
Sarah Boyack and others commented on the fact that having a cafe in the library was a result of the adoption of best practice in the private sector. It is no surprise that some book shops were popular because, as well as having a welcoming atmosphere, they had some of the services that we are now seeing in public facilities.
Alison Johnstone mentioned the impetus for using libraries in new ways, the inclusion of IT and the need to consider the equality impact of facilities in different parts of Scotland.
Gordon MacDonald spoke about integration and told us a bit more about the other projects that are working their way through the hub model, which are welcome, particularly from the point of view of the further integration of health and social care, and practitioners working together.
Community planning is an area in which I am leading the community plan review. We want to bind the public sector together to focus on outcomes. I am very reassured by the extent to which the Drumbrae project emphasises that agenda. I understand that the Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure and Capital Investment and my predecessor visited the site during construction, so perhaps I will be invited to see the finished product, which I have heard so much about this evening.
Over the next 10 years, £1.4 billion will be channelled through the Scottish Futures Trust to deliver projects such as the Drumbrae hub. Such hub initiatives are certainly the way forward in ensuring that there are synergies and that we maximise the benefits of working together.
At today’s meeting of the national economic forum, there was a discussion about youth employment and the need to ensure that all elements are working together and accessing the public sector procurement contracts. On the issue of how the hubs are working, the way in which the contract for the Drumbrae project was designed meant that contractors and subcontractors in many parts of Scotland benefited. Subcontractors from Edinburgh, East Kilbride, West Lothian, Glasgow, Stirling, Ayrshire, Renfrewshire and other places were pulled together to provide the necessary trades to complete the construction.
The Drumbrae project is an example of meeting community need, involving local people and using public funds efficiently to deliver a product that is heavily focused on outcomes and which has created employment and economic growth. It seems like a model and approach that we should all celebrate, and I again commend Colin Keir for securing the debate.
Meeting closed at 17:44.