Mo, Sep 26, 2005Council Sponsored Misinformation
The justification for the closure of the Ladywell Leisure Centre has always been provided by the Sundermead Estate project that in the Council's plans will eventually one day have a pool to replace Ladywell.
This is a development managed by the Council's regeneration directorate and its extension Urban Renaissance Lewisham (URL).
Chair
of the URL is our deputy Mayor Cllr Gavin Moore (picture) and visible
expressions of URL are its glossy newsletter and the consultation
exercises carried out around Lewisham, often in a marquee in Lewisham
Market on Saturdays.
The December 2004 issue of URL newsletter entitled everything you ever wanted to know had a Q&A page about different aspects of the developments. Here's what they wrote about the Ladywell Leisure Centre:
‘What is happening with Ladywell Leisure Centre?’
The Council is committed to improving both leisure and education provisions in Lewisham. At a meeting of the Council on Wednesday 20 October, twenty alternative site options for a new school were put forward. However, these options did not meet the criteria to allow a new school to open by 2006. The Council decided not to delay the process of finding an appropriate site and the location of the new school will be on the site of Ladywell Leisure Centre, which means the centre will close in 2007. The school will open on a temporary site in 2006.
The decision to close Ladywell pool in 2007 was made because of the urgent need to develop a new school and provide additional school places to meet demand. There are no other appropriate sites available in the borough that would enable a school to be developed in the timescale required.
A new leisure centre including a swimming pool will open in Downham in 2006, one year before the closure of Ladywell, so the borough will not be without a pool. A new flagship leisure facility, planned as part of the redevelopment of Lewisham Town Centre will open in 2010, meaning Lewisham will end up with more swimming facilities than before.
So, as we came to know of another consultation excercise taking place on Saturday 24th September, we quickly composed some ad hoc leaflets and placed our campaigning table as close as possiblke to the URL marquee to counter any misinformation provided there.
This time again the URL consultation marquee had a board entitled Leisure with more or less the same misleading content plus a paragraph about the council not considering doing more consultations on the school/pool issue.
We asked the nearby consultant to remove it as its content was misinforming the public.
Unfortunately we were informed that the board had to stay as: "the wording has been approved by the Deputy Mayor".
We then showed the consultants one of our informative leaflets explaining the true nature of the information they had been commissioned to convey to the lewishamites on behalf of our Council leadership.
At this point they had no answers to the arguments that they were presented with.
During the day we collected 140 signatures on the objection and informed as many people of the role played by the URL in misleading the people of Lewisham away from the true state of affairs.
Many followed our advice and went in the URL marquee asking for the Leisure Board to be removed. ...read more...
Council putting land developers' wishes before residents' needs
"Given the current interest in the development of the Evelyn Street site I am not proposing to reconsider the matter."
With these words the Mayor of Lewisham concluded his answer to a question asking him to reconsider a viable alternative site for the new school.
This site in Evelyn Street, London SE8, was part of one of the original alternatives submitted to the Mayor's attention last year. It's owned by the company "Law 2380 Ltd.", whose purpose is to "develop and sell land" and is about twice the size needed for a secondary school and three times the size of the Ladywell site.
The site had already been submitted to the Mayor's attention last September as part of a bigger plot of land comprising the Law 2380 site and the adjacent sites.
This submission was rejected with the following motivation:
"Evelyn Street / Oxestalls Road / Grove Street Area
This is an extensive site (45,000msq) covering the route of the original Surrey Dock Canal. It is in multi private ownership and is predominantly given over to mixed industrial use. It is likely to present complex and protracted site assembly issues and possible land contamination issues. It is further considered not to be an ideal location for the new school as even after the school opens the area is likely to remain industrial in nature."
The only part of this motivation that stands scrutiny is the fact that the land here described is indeed in multiple ownership.
It is also true that a very large part of it, big enough for two schools, is in single ownership.
What is not true is that this land is likely to remain in industrial use (see Mayor's answer) and that is likely to present protracted site assembly issues.
As for the contamination issues, that has never
been a reason to reject a site for development. The land borders with a
Primary school and a nursery, so if any contamination exists it surely
isn't that great.
Contaminated land is routinely decontaminated
and the cost of the eventual decontamination is taken into
consideration when determining the value of the site.
So, the site was re-submitted with a more defined boundary to avoid the multi-ownership issue.
The question was submitted on 18th June.
On 23rd June a consultant representing the company Law 2380 Ltd. sent this letter to the Council's planning office.
On 29th June at full Council the Mayor gave his reply.
Its getting harder every day for the council to keep their story standing up.
The people voted them in but the land developers and speculators are the ones who are happy with their performance. ...read more...