Liberal Democrat councillors say Kirklees Council have let down community campaigners hoping to save a historic library building shut down in 2019.

Almondbury Carnegie Library was closed despite strong opposition and a group was set up to look at taking on the building from the council under a Community Asset Transfer.

The Covid pandemic and what the group says was a lack of support from the council in helping them build a business case meant years of delay.

Now, say Almondbury Lib Dem councillors Paola Davies and Alison Munro, the council has put the building up for sale and it could be lost to the community forever.

Clr Davies said: “This is yet another example of the council ploughing ahead with its plans with scant regard for residents.”

The group – Almondbury Carnegie Friends – had been planning to lobby councillors at the next full council meeting on September 18 and chairman of the group, Mike Mitchell, said: “This final move by the council does not surprise me in the least.

“They have behaved like this throughout the process. They have done very little to provide help and support to our community group.

“It’s almost as if we have been forced into playing a game of ‘cat and mouse’ for quite a considerable time when we could have been providing a valuable new facility for our community.”

Clr Davies said ward councillors and residents had been kept in the dark throughout and added: “The council actually arranged a meeting with residents and the chair of the group at the building in July 2023 after Cabinet had approved the sale of the building, which we were unaware of.

“No one at the meeting mentioned Cabinet had already approved its sale and instead advice was provided on the business plan and a question mark was raised over the status of the group, which resulted in the group hurriedly obtaining charitable status which was a lot of work for them.

“The actions of the council were at the very least misleading and raise deep concerns.”

In a statement, council leader Clr Carole Pattison said: “Almondbury Library was closed in 2019, and since then we’ve been working with a local community group, the Almondbury Carnegie Friends, who wanted to develop the building as a community centre.

“Despite delays due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we actually supported the group to make their application for a Community Asset Transfer – which would have transferred responsibility for the Carnegie Building, which once housed the library, over to them.

“This involved a great deal of support from many different areas within the council, as well as a development grant to undertake community consultation, and paid support from Locality – a national organisation that supports communities.

“Sadly, in the end, the business case the group provided wasn’t sufficient to pass our assessment process for a Community Asset Transfer, and the application was turned down in October last year.

“The building has also been listed as an Asset of Community Value, which meant that registered groups were given the opportunity to submit their bids to purchase it. Unfortunately, no bids were received.

“In June 2023, our Cabinet publicly agreed that as this building was no longer needed by the council, if the Community Asset Transfer didn’t go through we’d still be looking to pass ownership of the Carnegie Building onto someone else.

“Details of this were shared in the press at the time, and have been publicly available on our website ever since. When the group’s application for a Community Asset Transfer was unsuccessful, it was therefore agreed that the building would be sold via auction.

“Next month – five years after the library first closed, and a year on from the Almondbury Carnegie Friends’ application being deemed unsuccessful – we’ll be putting the Carnegie Building up for sale.

“Hopefully the auction will be successful, and this money can be reinvested into positive schemes for Kirklees’ future – like the blueprints set to improve our town centres, better schools for local children with special educational needs, or any number of other great projects to support local people and businesses.”