INVITATION FROM THE ARCHES, BLENHEIM GROVE

Bermondsey & Rotherhithe Carnival

12 June

Southwark Park 12noon -6pm

=====================================================================

The next ward panel meeting for The Lane ward will be held on Wednesday 23rd June 2010 in the upstairs meeting room at McDonalds, Rye Lane, SE15.

The meeting starts at 19:30 but you are welcome to arrive from 19:00hrs onwards.

The Lane Ward current policing priorities as set by our local residents through the Ward Panel last time are:

* Youth Engagement

* Supply and Consumption of Drugs

* Anti-Social Behaviour

I would like to see as many people there as possible as these meetings really are starting to prove useful for the local residents and police alike.

Can I ask to let me know if you will be coming so that I can get an idea of numbers. Please email your reply to Mark.Hurst@met.police.uk

Finally, if there are any questions you may have then please feel free to email me or give me a ring on the below number.

I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible.

Kind Regards,

Mark Hurst | Police Sergeant 25MD

The Lane Safer Neighbourhoods Team

MetPhone 788323 | Telephone 020 7161 8323 | Mobile 07766 442999 Email Mark.Hurst@met.police.uk Address Bellenden Road Safer Neighbourhoods Office, Unit 1 Bellenden Road Retail Park, Bellenden Road, Peckham, SE15 5DR www.met.police.uk

 Burgess Park stakeholders meeting this

Tuesday 8th June 2010 at 6pm

at the Sports Centre in Burgess Park.

Southwark Council plans "to destroy large parts of Burgess Park (see draft list below) and use the Aylesbury £4 million to bulldoze the park and replace it with

"A purpose built space for some of the largest festivals in Europe with amphitheatre style viewing for over 100 thousand people, a floating stage, and a dedicated cultural hub"

Please could you forward this email to any tenant reps or amenity groups or others that use Burgess Park and that you know would oppose the destruction of the existing park. This is an urgent and important meeting.

Donnachadh McCarthy

pp Burgess Park Action Group

020 7703 8748

07947 884299

3 Acorns Eco-Audits <contact@3acorns.co.uk> _________________________________________________________

DRAFT: List of previous park investments and wild-life sites to be bull-dozed by the latest LDA/Council “masterplan”

1.               Landscaping paid for by Groundwork Southwark in front of Library – now mature to be bulldozed.

2.               The landscaping and re-tiling and new lighting installed by Groundwork Southwark in Wells Way underpass to be bulldozed. (This is the only safe connection crossing a road that is so busy it carried 50% of the Old Kent Road – essential for parents and very popular with cyclists.)

3.               The 20 year old woodland and hill between the lime kiln and library to be flattened.

4.               The newly installed Borough’s first LED ultra-efficient park lighting scheme installed on path between Southampton Way and Albany Road to be removed completely.

5.               The large and formerly very popular toddler and teenage playground on Wells Way – to be bulldozed and landscaped instead of being repaired, installed by Southwark Council about 15 years ago and which the council had no money to repair even the swings.

6.               About 400 meters of the popular cycle and pedestrian Canal Avenue where it passes under the old canal bridge is to be dug up and a pond put in its place, paid for by Groundwork Southwark about 8 years ago.

7.               Entire side of the dual line of cherry-blossom trees planted by Groundwork Southwark at same time as laying of Canal Avenue is to be bulldozed for its entire length between the canal over-bridge and Glengall Road on St Georges side of Avenue.

8.               The cycle track by the lime kiln is to be bulldozed – part funded by Southwark Cyclists just over two years ago.

9.               The woodland, wildlife site and hill at east end of Burgess Park Lake which was planted by Southwark Council rangers service about 15 years ago and now mature to be flattened.

10.               A second woodland, wildlife site and hill on other side of closed Calmington Road to be flattened.

11.               The wildflower meadow by the Canal Avenue – been colonised by range of wild-plants and flowers for over 10 years and been undergoing meadow management for over 10 years to have the Cycle/BMX track built on it.

12.               The mature wildlife woodland sections along St George’s Way which was planted by Groundwork Southwark about

12 years ago and now mature, is to be split up with a complex maze of paths.

13.               The landscaping between Lake and Old Kent Road to be bulldozed to allow lake to be seen from the Old Kent Road (disastrously this will allow traffic and pollution from Old Kent Road to be seen from the currently peaceful lake).

14.               The entrance at Old Kent Road installed by Southwark Council about 13 years ago to be completely bulldozed rather than revamped.

15.               LDA “landscape architects” have been unable to provide a number of mature and semi-mature they intend to kill and remove.  Initial guestimates are well over 1,000.  Nearly 50 years of planting and growth of trees is threatened in large swathes of the park.

16.               In the words of the architects the Canal Avenue mature wildflower meadow will be replaced by “A purpose built space for some of the largest festivals in Europe with amphitheatre style viewing for over 100 thousand people, a floating stage, and a dedicated cultural hub;

17.               The wildlife site beside the cricket pitch is to be bulldozed.  This is well over 30 years old and is on the site of a garden that predates the park.

18.               An area the size of THREE football pitches is to be removed from open space and instead fenced off for polytunnels and allotments.

19.               The existing cafe that overlooks the beautiful multi-cultural Chumleigh garden is to be closed and moved inside the building to overlook the Aylesbury Estate and Albany Road.

The outdoor tables instead of being placed in a beautiful sheltered Arabic garden with the cafe furniture designed in line with the Arabic heritage of the garden will be on a concrete site exposed to a wind-tunnel funnelled from adjacent buildings.

20.               Two sets of paths are to be placed through the existing RSPB maintained special house-sparrow meadows.

21.               The 30 year old wildlife woodland and nesting area by the Albany Road side of the lake to be bulldozed.

22.               The largest and most mature section of wild woodland along Albany Road at other side of path near lake looks to be bulldozed.

23.               Mature shrubbery in front of St George’s Church at junction of New Church Road to be bulldozed –planted by international student workshop 14 years ago.

24.               The avenue of mature trees between entrance at corner of Wells Way to the Canal Avenue all look likely to be removed, along with the path installed by Groundwork Southwark about

8 year ago.

 ____________________________________________________________

  LDA architects and the current council proposals are classic 1960’s style bulldoze and start again disposable landscape school of architecture.  The financial, ecological and community investment that is proposed to be destroyed will be painful to the thousands of local people who have watched our park gradually and organically grow from the collection of bombsites and scrap yards that plagued it 20 years ago.

It need not be like this.  The existing park is a loved, living and breathing entity in its own right already, with some already beautiful corners already thriving. With careful nurturing and investment, this community led organic growth and investment can continue, so that it continues to provide a green haven and lung for the tens of thousands of people who live within walking distance of the park and the hundreds of thousands of people who play sport, walk or simply picnic in it every year.

An alternative vision to the LDA nightmare would be a national quality Eco-Park designed for the 21st century and based on eco-friendly principles of working and developing the best of what we have already and creating a dream of a zero waste, zero-carbon, green ecological oasis, where people can escape, relax and play, to recharge from the densely built surrounding city – a Hampstead Heath that South Londoners can be proud of.

Burgess Park needs to demonstrate the best of environmental sustainability principles, so that it can act as a beacon of hope in the midst of the threatening environmental crises our children are facing as they grow up.  Telling them that the way to treat their own homes and gardens is to bulldoze them every ten to twenty years fails this crucial test of sustainability – the first test of which should always be – is it necessary?  LDA’s ecologically disastrous proposals fail this test and are a major crime in wasted carbon terms to boot.  Lets show our children instead that there is a different way – one based on community ecology and respect for their future and respect for the wildlife and investments that previous generations have nourished and created.