2010 Revamping of the Park

From February 2010 and for much of the year a major revamping of the park has been taking place (see the annexed DetailedDesign... at the bottom of the page).

The work came about as the consequence of a large successful bid for a National Lottery Community Space Fund by the Friends of Surrey Square Park and the charity GroundWork Southwark.

The main chunk of the works boiled down to build a footpath across the park, repairing the perimetral park fence and the establishment of a wild-flower meadow and edge, trimming up (including the removal of dead trees) the "memorial garden" area and putting in a raised growing bed plus the fitting of some benches and a couple of notice boards. It also included the purchased of some removable sport equipment (for football games).

Another later stage of the project (planned 2012) includes the establishment of new raised beds in the "memorial garden", some maintenance, planting and trimming.

Part of the bid referred to the previous year Friends of Surrey Square Park Survey (a leaflet handed out at a "Day of Fun" event and posted through letter boxes in the surrounding flats and houses).

The project has been the brainchild of Frank that managed most of its aspects. It was all too brainy for me and some of inevitable tussle on the actual fund allocations and marginal modifications were not of my liking but this is the way these big projects work:

A local group (in this case the Friends) come up with a project [the idea]. They then convince a larger organisation (in this case GroundWork Southwark) of its validity and to co-partner it providing the surveys, designs, legal and planning studies needed [project writing and bid application].

The bid is placed and the convolute requirements, for instance various additional modifications, validations of the Council willingness to participate, etc is than provided. Then it is followed through as the bid process unfolds in its various stages.

If all goes well and the bid is successful another round of contacts, design planning, meeting with Council officials take place in order to put it into practice.

In this specific case the Council Park Department acted as a provider, recruiting the contractors (usually the ones they already use), deciding the time scale and providing an administrator for the project, usually a part time consultant, that keep tabs of all the people involved and agrees practical modifications amongst the stakeholders and cajoles ways of saving resources* [project implementation planning].

Than comes the actual work. This requires following and resolving the inevitable problems arising**. One should bear in mind that there is not a single contractor that is doing the works. There are a variety of them. From the freelancer doing the odd drawing, to the Council private subcontractors (that can use other providers if needed), to the large charity doing a part of the work (BCTV and the windflower meadow, for instance) using it own volunteers and the help of other charities or parties (consultation from the London Wildlife Trust and its own arrangements for soil transport and so on) possibly implementing its role in the project as part of some project of its own [project management and feedback].

To make matter worse all along the people involved change. Especially from the Council side there have been a consistent change and movement of people. Each new responsible officer has to be approached and briefed as the succession is never smooth (the structure itself of the system may change in response to local or national policies changes) and the inevitable workout of a positive rapport amongst all has to be established. Then the original project manager (a good block and nature lover, Rupert, by name) had to be replaced and all the knitting up of the process recreated.

There are also logical inconsistencies on its own due to the nature and evolution of bureaucratic practices*** that requires adapting rules by extensive and collective consultations and agreements (hence the need of good relations with all the parties involved in the project).

The Friends of Surrey Square were lucky in having Frank that followed and sorted it throughout.

Below is a selection of images from the long process (still things to be added).

It is not clear what caused this and the crab apple to die but both had been vandalised as saplings.

It is not clear what caused this and the crab apple to die but both had been vandalised as saplings.

* My small contribution was to convince the project manager, Rupert, to ask the landscaping contractor that instead of transporting the surplus soil to a landfill it would have been better and cheaper to use it to cover the dry-wood hedge in the Wild Life Area. A section of it had already gone up in flame and covering it would create a beautiful habitat for insects and small animals. They had already on site the earth moving equipment and had to move the soil anyway.

I managed something similar with the BCTV people making the windflower meadow and their volunteers were super in helping finishing the covering.

Also with Julian we convinced the tree contractors to give us the logs of the chopped dead trees from elsewhere in the park to make a loggery.

** Like when the landscaping contractor digger was stolen and the schedule delayed.

*** Some of the aspects are definitely Kafkaesque. My favourite was that during the consultation with the Park Authority it was deemed that the work (or part of it at least) did not necessitate Planning Permission. This is a big deal because to have the permission a "planning application", with drownings, estimates, surveys, insurances have to be created and submitted. Then the application has to go through a public consultation process, and approved. Apart for the time (and the risk of delay in the consultation phase) it also turn out to be very expensive considering that the money come out of one unchangeable budget (the award money from the National Lottery in this case). Plus all goes to a different Council department (the Planning Department) where they do not know a thing about the project circumstances or care for that matter.

However to relieve of the need of Planning Permissions, a document unfathomably called "Application for Lawfulness" has to be obtained from the Planning Department itself.

Without that piece of paper (or a full Planning Permission) the contractors, couldn't start. Remember that all this is managed by the Park and Open Spaces Department on behalf of the project, namely a different branch of the Council.

The Planning Department in order to make an assessment of the need to submit a planning application for the proposed work to be carried out , one couldn't guess, requires a full planning application!!