Experts cast doubt on Birmingham Central Library 'concrete cancer' claims

Jun 16 2009 by Paul Dale, Birmingham Post

Moves to demolish Birmingham Central Library could be in doubt after independent experts dismissed claims that the building is structurally unsound and suffering from “concrete cancer”.

Engineering consultants Scott Wilson found no evidence to support a city council assessment that the library was at risk of falling to bits and no signs of any defect in the structure of the 1970s building in Paradise Forum.

The firm carried out a study in 2007 at the request of the council, but the results were never published by the authority.

Details have only now come to light following a Freedom of Information Act request by pressure group Friends of the Central Library. The alleged poor condition of the building and the cost of repairing and modernising it, said by the council to be £166 million, was one of the major reasons for a decision to build a new library in Centenary Square at a cost of £193 million.

The Central Library, designed in a brutalist style by celebrated Birmingham architect John Madin and famously slated by Prince Charles as a place more appropriate for burning books rather than reading them, will be demolished if the Government decides against listing the building as architecturally important.

But the absence of any proof that the building is structurally unsound could work against the council if the library is listed.