More on Tidemill

The Council (actually the Cabinet says No!), so does the Mayor of London. (Actually what they say is more complex, I was channeling Little Britain.) The Council says go ahead with the Developer’s current plans, so does the Mayor of London.

Len Duvall, the area’s London Assembly member, reports the Mayor of London’s decision in a press release called “Old Tidemill Garden could be lost for ever“. Crosswhatfields reports the lead up to the Council decision in an article called “Save Tidemill & Reginald House update“.

It would seem that the Cabinet want the houses now, are frightened that the developer will walk, or sue the council, and that grant support for the project will be lost through delay if they voted to instruct the developer to consider the alternate plan, which is designed to provide the same number of houses.

Here’s the alternative plan, which the developers have rejected, and the Council has not reviewed. It saves both the current council houses, and the Garden.

One of the increasingly powerful arguments for keeping the Garden is its role as ‘lung’. Given the amount of building work surrounding the area; its 3.3 thousand metres2 protects people from the shit created by the building works at Deptford Church,the Tidemill site itself, and the coming Creekside development.

 

 

I have been told that the Council believe they are replacing this capability, but if so it would be a departure from previous practice.  A friend writes,

There will NOT be an increase in ‘publicly accessible space’, as claimed by Council officers. The new public realm is said to be 3915sqm, but more than 50% of this (1973sqm) is private courtyards. 20% of the remainder is hard landscaping, leaving only 1565sqm of public green space. The current garden and the lawn on the corner are 3364sqm in total. What is offered is 1799sqm less, which represents a net loss (or deficit) of 53%.

, although see the comment below.

Here is a picture of some of the trees that’ll go, although they’d going both plans.

I wonder what the next steps are.

This is a missed opportunity for the new Labour Group.

ooOOOoo

Other articles on this blog are tagged “tidemill gardens” and I wrote up my notes during the initial planning consultation on my wiki, in an article called “Giffin Street Redevelopment“. …

Tidemill

I am proposing the following motion to the Lewisham Deptford Labour Party General Committee.

This CLP resolves to send the following motion to London Regional Conference

“This Conference notes

1. The passing of Composite 5 on Housing at Labour Conference 2017
2. Jeremy Corbyn’s leader’s speech in which he stated “Regeneration under a Labour government will be for the benefit of the local people, not private developers, not property speculators … [&]… councils will have to win a ballot of existing tenants and leaseholders before any redevelopment scheme can take place.”
3. That Lewisham Council Strategic Planning committee approved planning permission to redevelop the Old Tidemills School site involving the redevelopment (destruction) of 16 council houses and the loss of Tidemills Community Gardens.
4. That further planning permissions involving the loss of council houses in Lewisham Deptford have been prepared.
5. That Councils have a duty to follow the direction of the Mayor’s Housing Plan

This Conference calls on the Mayor of London to call in planning permissions granted which involve the destruction of social housing”

This CLP instructs the Secretary to write to the Mayor of London informing him of this motion calling on him to “call in” the Tidemills Planning Application.

 …

Deptford

The BBC are reshowing “The secret history of our streets”; it’s based on Charles Booth’s social surveys and episode 1 is about #Deptford High Street. It’s fascinatingly shot, with focus of the story just outside my flat.

When Booth started his surveys Deptford Hight Street was a retail Mecca and while surrounded by poverty, there was money around. Somethings only change slowly and London was biggest city that had ever existed; the wealth north of the river must have been stupendous. The post war period was a retailers golden age, but the wealth dried up, and the urban planners decided to rebuild London. The show discusses the family disruptions caused by the redevelopment of Reginald Road, and to complete the story, they’re starting again. They have some contemporary film of some housewives talking about depression, one even was sent to the Doctor’s by their husband. These disruptions were made worse by a level of family proximity which they valued, but I find incomprehensible and was seen to be disrupted by moving to Brockley (about 1 mile away). There have always been nomads and homesteaders though.

The pictures of the horse drawn rag and bone man, the 19th century’s attempt at recycling brought back memories. No. Really!

You can’t make a film about Deptford High Street without talking about the Deptford Arms, and its left wing history and the film talks in some depth about the street’s relationship with alchohol. It’s hard to comment, since the film was made some time ago, possibly before I arrived in 2009, but they record that the number of pubs has fallen from 12 (on a street about 800 yards long) to two, although the Job Centre has just opened. They capture the Deptford Arms becoming a betting shop and the growth of street drinking, and contrast it with the hard drinking undertaken by our parents and grand-parents (although lets face it, most of this drinking was done by the men.) There’s a story about the colour bars in the pubs, one of which was disrupted by a black army veteran who shot up the Deptford Arms. (While one never condones terrorism, he claims it worked as a political protest, they let him drink there afterwards.)

Since its on the BBC, it’ll only be on the web for a couple of weeks, and then disappear into their /dev/null. …