Final big push to fund new library
A crowdfunding appeal has been launched to help in the final push towards the costs of a new £800,000 library for Strathblane.
Strathblane Community Development Trust this week told the 2,300 residents of Strathblane, Blanefield, Mugdock and Carbeth they were “almost there” in the push for the target.
After a year’s work the CDT has raised the impressive total of £600,000 in private donations towards the cost of building a new community-owed hub library to replace the deteriorating 40-yearold library run from a portable building by Stirling Council, which has no plans to replace the leaking building.
Now SCDT has launched its first-ever crowdfunding appeal to the villagers, seeking to secure a further £50,000 towards the library’s estimated £800,000 cost. Other sources of potential funding, including charitable foundations, are also being approached.
“We’re so close now,” says SCDT chair Margaret Vass. “We’ve secured this wonderful design from Thomas Robinson Architects of Croftamie. We’ve most of the finance in place. We’re negotiating with Stirling Council to run its library service from our community-owned building.
“We’re well aware it’s not the best time to launch an appeal for people to give to our library cause, with the coronavirus epidemic and Christmas just around the corner, but this is a great cause. For too long we’ve lacked a proper recreational and social hub for our community.
“This will be the first time in Scotland that a community has raised the funding to build its own new library, a development that may become more common in view of current restraints on public sector finances. Strathblane Library is one of the most popular of any Stirlingshire village, attracting over 30,000 visits a year.”
SCDT’S library plan kicked off a year ago when local resident, Angus Graham of Ballewan Estates, announced he was donating the huge sum of £500,000. Since then a European family trust has pledged a further £100,000.
The campaign has also attracted the support of the Cooperative Wholesale Society’s Local Community Fund and it is one of the causes that shoppers at the Strathblane Co-op store can select to receive a share of their spend.
The development trust’s appeal, launched via its website www.strathblane.online and also on the village’s Facebook page, seeks individual and family donations of anything from £10 to £1000. Those who can give more would gain the title of patron of the library.
Local businesses are also being invited to sponsor the venture through regular monthly payments.
To be built on the site of the present library, next to Strathblane Primary School, the new library is expected to open early in 2022 and the village’s librarians, Lynne James and Beth Crossan, are excited about the prospect of working in such a modern facility.
The new building will be 40 per cent larger than the current portable building. In addition to the actual library, there will be two separate community rooms, fully equipped with computers and audio-visual aides for learning, video-conferencing and other purposes.
The architects have created a highly practical building featuring a spectacular fulllength glass wall facing up to the Campsies.
There will be a long reading desk stretching the full length of the wall, enabling library users to sit at this window taking full advantage of this special location.
Other main features include: a children’s library zone, with soft seating for flopping down with a book; ultra-fast broadband internet with Wifi throughout; a coffee area with casual seating; quiet reading areas for users to study and research; and IT desks for online work and research.
Subject to funding, SCDT also hopes to install a sophisticated energy management system with roof-mounted solar panels and an air source heat-pump, making the building a carbon-neutral facility.