Springday

20080425 Spring Day

Early in the year, the 25th of April 2008, The Kinglake Estate Tenants and Residents Association organised a "Spring Day" event on the Surrey Square park.

The festive occasion was principally set up to counteract mooted plans outlined (amongst different choices) in the proposed regeneration plan for the Aylesbury estate, one of the larger estate and whose regeneration projects is one of larger of its kind in the Country.

Specifically the proposals (at least one of them) called for the rehousing of residents displaced by future staged demolitions of the Aylesbury estate many blocks and high-rise houses, in purposely built several stories high accommodations on what is now Open Land Parks. Specifically the Surrey Square Park was mentioned.

Apparently the (one imagines, well paid) consultants that compiled the proposals manage to pull the feat of appearing sensible by running a ( it was apparently requested by the contract or other legal requirements) "consultation" on the matter.

They pulled the feat by:

1. Having the Council rearranging the regeneration area, by largely unpublicized committee decision, to include previously excluded limitrophe areas and estates (like in-fact the Kinglake estate).
2. Producing a poll on the scrapping of the Open Land at a meeting of one of the several Tenants & Residents Association that share the Aylesbury estate.
3. Publishing the proposal inconspicuously in their paper (part of the regeneration proposals at some stage and eventually to be presented to the elected Councillors to be approved).

The "consultation" and proposals was carried out so surreptitiously that local people had come to its knowledge by chance (actually thanks to Julian).

In other large regeneration projects Southwark Council has been known to have effectively bypassed consultations (often a legal requirement they are obliged to procure) by burying painful and potentially unpopular proposal in the depth of the voluminous documentation and proceeding to general polls that highlight other more palatable aspects of the advocated developments.

So people did what they do best in these circumstances. They panicked.

A committee of all the parties and residents organisations (even some hitherto unknown or of very dubious representativeness) banded together in a makeshift campaign, leaflets were delivered, posters pasted, meetings held and residents motivated. A contrary petition even collected over 400 signatures.

I personally do not think all this was that much effective but certainly the combination of the mobilisation and the sudden funding crisis the Council found itself in, swayed the regeneration decisionmakers toward less destructive options. Newly elected Councillors smelled where the wind was blowing, jumped on the bandwagon, and one was left asking oneself why all this was done in the first place.

As far as I know nobody was reprimanded for the fiasco and the consultants paid.

They were not helped by some other (politically at least) loony proposals to use Burgess Park to rebuild the new accommodations for the old and future residents of the regenerated area and use the present space occupied by the Aylesbury Estate to rebuild another park. This had predictably wide resonance and attracted the attention of newspapers and MPs.

Locally, for us the area residents, it was potentially a serious risk and it is probably not save to discount something similar happening again in the future but for the moment the danger has been averted.

In particular the status of even more contentious and at risk green spaces, like the Wild Life Area, have been severely tested.

Fortunately the recently announcement of the BBC "Breading Spaces" interest in the Wild Life Area will give the place a better protective status so hopefully it will become increasingly difficult for bureaucrats to ride roughshod on the rights to a little green spaces even for poor, lower class residents like us.

In any case the organisers of the campaign set up a "Spring Day" celebration in the Surrey square park to celebrate the passed danger.

With the festivities there were also present a stall to publicise the project for the Wildlife area and bolster the BBC bid.

Below are few pictures of the occasion.

The Wildlife Area stall

Jon Best, the Southwark Council Ecological Officer, he has been instrumental in submitting the bid for the BBC "breathing spaces" program.

Definitely a cool character.

The weather was not that much but everybody had a good feeling about the event.

Showing plans with the Wildlife area on the far background

Even our local copper, Srg. Daly, was impressed.

Still the wildlife area stall was a success with strange adults (in spite of policemen hanging about) and the lure of free food.

Even local Cllr Jane Salmon could not stay away from the fun

Children galore!!

and of course local well known faces, all enjoying the occasion

Lastly our Kinglake photographer, Ally, caught here with some unsavoury persona (she eventually moved away. Who could blame her!).

(Old) Wildlife Area Introduction page Return to the 2008 timeline on "My Surrey Square" sitee