Queen’s Crescent Library [David Anstiss]

THE Town Hall has been told to improve security at Queen’s Crescent Library amid claims it is being used by drug users.

Mick Farrant, the former chair of the Queen’s Crescent Community Association, said he had been threatened and that staff should be better protected.

“I’m very worried,” he told a scrutiny committee meeting last week.

“Last Friday, I was in the Crescent and a woman came up to me and said she wanted money and I said ‘no, please go away’ – and she told me she was going to ‘smash my f***ing face in’. You’ve had trouble in the library too, not by this woman by others.

“This is partly because the toilet is open to anybody. There are some very nasty people in the Crescent. I’ve spoken to police. I do think security needs increasing in the library.”

He added: “One particular person, who I won’t name, has been into the toilets shooting up. Library staff should not have to face some of these people. I don’t know why the security guard was removed.”

Mr Farrant said that the library was the “most important organisation in the area” and he wanted to see a “friends of Queen’s Crescent Library” group set up.

He told councillors that he was concerned that Camden would close down the library one day – because so many other services in the area had shut in recent years.

Camden officials said security had been removed in 2023 due to “resourcing” but the council had not seen an increase in incidents.

A CCTV upgrade at all of the borough’s libraries was ongoing, the meeting heard.

Fiona Tarn, head of Camden Libraries, said: “We have heard universally, across the borough, that residents do feel that libraries are safe spaces – where people can come together, one of the few universal spaces left for all ages.”

The committee was told that Camden has no plans to close libraries and that an application to Arts Council England was in for funding to improve the toilets.