“Mighty oaks from little acorns grow”

According to residents, in 1960 controversy reigned whilst the library and the clinic next door to it were being planned. At this time a new community centre was also being planned on the same site, in what would have been a tight squeeze. Plans were later drawn up separately for the public hall  .Residents against the plans for all three buildings felt that property prices would fall and that there was no need to spend lots of money on something so wasteful. These people overlooked the site, preferring to look at waste land than any buildings. Residents for it wanted to have a place for residents to go, and for new clubs to form and use it.

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By October 1962, plans were no further forward. The Ratepayers talk of  “shilly-shallying” with no start date planned for either the library or clinic. Over the road in the Brookside building, the library there was opening for extra hours  , proving the need for the service to be expanded. By February 1963 the building work had still not begun. Plans for a public hall to be built on the same site had been abandoned. By now 5 or 6 years of planning, costs, public enquiries and ministerial decisions had all been stopped by a credit squeeze imposed on council finances by the then Chancellor Selwyn Lloyd (Conservative party). Councillor D J Nuttall, who was resigning due to ill health, wrote in his last entry    for the Contact magazine of the “problems he had encountered over the last four years”. These included the lack of shops, a village centre, a public hall, a clinic and library.

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At last in June 1963,  the Ratepayers declared that a start had been made on the clinic and library, to be completed by the end of 1963 or January 1964  . In September 1963 the magazine stated that issues over the clinic, library, shopping facilities and bus services were coming to “a satisfactory conclusion”  . 

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The March 1964 Contact magazine stated   , “Rapid residential development has made reorganisation and rehousing of the library service in Heald Green a matter of urgency”. A new library was needed for the population estimated to now be 12,000 people. It was to be stocked with 15,000 books and would be staffed full time by trained staff. “Very soon a building, which will be equipped to provide a full range of public library services, will be opened in Heald Green. It is the hope of the County Librarian and of all who have had any part in the planning of this service, that the library will be well used to the lasting benefit of the people of Heald Green”.

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However, by June 1964 the library had still not opened, even though it had been officially handed over in March 1964. The County Library Committee had not yet appointed a librarian and the Ratepayers suggested  “a good few weeks will pass before one is confirmed”   . 

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