CONTEXT 180 : JUNE 2024 49 JOHN PRESTON The battle for Cambridge’s Mill Road Free Library, part 2 This final article about a listed former library shows what can happen when heritage comes low in local authority priorities, despite the best efforts of conservation officers. Part 1 of this article (‘The battle for Mill Road Free Library’, Context 179, March 2024) concluded with Cambridge City Council’s depot site development in progress, next to the former library, a listed building at risk ‘due to lack of maintenance’ by the county’s tenants, the Indian Cultural and Community Association (ICCA). The cost of carrying out full restoration works was estimated at around £200,000. The county engaged Donald Insall Associates, who submitted a listed building application for repairs, and internal removal of timber boxings and blown plaster to allow inspection and drying out. The county had offered to undertake the repairs, with costs spread over a 25-year lease, but the ICCA declined this. The city conservation officers threatened formal repairs action. The county invited tenders for the consented works and the removal of various fittings installed by the ICCA. None of these removals had been mentioned in the listed building application. In March 2021 the county’s group asset manager told me that the repossessed former library was being considered for ‘delivering services in Cambridge’, but no provision was made for reinstating heating and services. Shell-and-core repairs started with the removal of everything inserted by the ICCA. The carved stones of the Hindu shrine were destined for the skip until an inspired intervention by local hairdresser Piero The former library in 2021, after repairs (Photo: John Preston)
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