Julian Coman’s article quotes a list, from the Labour’s Covenant pamphlet, of the places we need to invest in “where people from different backgrounds, meet talk, argue and laugh” (Politicians may have forgotten about ‘community’, but British people haven’t, 7 February). While the list is commendable, public libraries are a surprising omission. Many people once saw them as the heart of the communities they served. They provide all the facilities that Coman outlines, but like the BBC they also inform, educate and entertain.
However, in recent years they have fallen foul of Conservative policies. In the austerity forced on local government, around 800 places lost that beating heart. This has happened when people need to be made aware of the dangers of misrepresentation and misinformation: dangers that threaten personal and public decision-making and could destroy our democracy. More than ever, communities require access to trustworthy and reliable information that a professional library service can provide.
Moreover, the pandemic has clearly demonstrated that reading is perhaps more popular than ever. Communities still need the 21st-century equivalent of the Whitechapel library, recalled in Bernard Kops’s poem, where people including immigrants and working-class autodidacts found: “That door of the library was the door into me / And Lorca and Shelley said ‘Come to the feast.’ / Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East.”
Bob Usherwood
Emeritus professor, University of Sheffield
• Julian Coman’s encomium for “community” is vital and timely. He stresses the community of spirit, but there are structural changes that can greatly aid that spirit. One of the problems is that many parts of our cities and other urban areas have, through intrusive infill development, ceased to be “townships” and become suburbs.
This effect can be mitigated in minor but noticeable ways, such as by having signage at community borders showing the historic name of that community and by developing voluntary initiatives that popularise community identity. Sports teams are particularly significant in increasing this.
The other key initiative is to utilise the existing legislation to establish urban parishes. Very few neighbourhoods have done so – and they have been mainly in “posh” districts. If local authorities were committed to aiding such initiatives and using their administrative capacity to bring together myriad local community associations, there is every possibility of establishing many urban parishes that can then become focal points for community identity and activity.
Michael Meadowcroft
Leeds
• Julian Coman’s article raised an important issue. Having witnessed and participated in many of Blair’s and Heseltine’s communitarian regeneration initiatives around Hackney, it is clear to me that Labour will have to change its ways and devolve power at a very deep level if it has any chance becoming the party of community. The closest it has ever come to this is during Livingstone’s first reign at the Greater London council, along with the Scarman-inspired urban programmes. It is from that experience, and the remnants of its positive effects that can still be found here, that we should now be learning.
Adam Hart
Co-director, Vortex Jazz Foundation; former executive director (1996-2012), Hackney Co-operative Developments
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