QUARTER OF £6M BURGESS PARK GRANT SPENT ON PLANNING AND SURVEYS

Comments (0)

20 May 2010

John Prendergast
johnp@southwarknews.org

EXCLUSIVE
A quarter of the £6million grant awarded to Burgess Park for major redevelopments has been spent on planning and surveys.

A dispute has now broken out about how to spend the remaining £4.5million, which will be used on physical projects, as planners wish to level mounds around the lake so it can be seen from the Old Kent Road.

A recent stakeholder group meeting, where plans were discussed, also became heated when members were told they could not be elected to the park board that will rubber stamp final plans.

Donnachadh McCarthy, an eco-auditor who has worked on improving the park since 1992, said: "At the consultation meeting the Peckham Society and myself voiced our opposition to mounds being levelled, and the board point blank refused to put our objections to the meeting. I have never been to a meeting where you can't do that and it makes it a waste of time."

He added: "We have been told £1.5m has been spent on another masterplan which is a collasal waste of money. This park has had four to five masterplans, so why do we need a new one?"

Sue Amos, from the Friends of Burgess Park (FOBP) group, also told the 'News' more than a million pounds had been spent on designer fees, legal fees, and surveys on bio-diversity and pollution.

She added: "The FOBP support the design, but we do have concerns about the levelling of mounds around the lake. It is a break from the wind and I don't think they have considered that.

"We also need to think about what we can build on what we already have, rather than starting again. We think that the money should be spent working on the bio-diversity in the park, and on things that aren't that glamorous but are actually useful. Like good signage and developing footpaths, rather than expensive design elements."

Mr McCarthy added: "We have a proposal to bulldoze an existing playground and landscape it; we feel it would be more sensible to refurbish it. Another proposal wants to bulldoze landscaping done eight years ago by Groundwork Southwark and have the playground here instead."

A council spokesman said: "The redesign of the Old Kent Road entrance won't involve levelling the existing landscape - much of which will stay just as it is now - some of the landscape will be reshaped so the public get a view of the lake, one of the park's gems. It's been part of the proposals from the very start, and one that the
community and stakeholder groups all backed.

"The consultation process has been incredibly thorough and has allowed all corners of the borough to have their say. We're really keen that the stakeholder meetings raise concerns over designs where appropriate, but obviously at various stages decisions have to be  taken about what gets included in the final design. This design will then be subject to a planning application, upon which people will be able to comment."

The £6million pot was garnered after the council successfully obtaining a £2million grant from the Mayor of London. This has been supplemented with £4 million from the Aylesbury New Deals for the Communities and the council.

---

Social Bookmarks:
del.icio.us Digg Newsvine Reddit Facebook StumbleUpon
Wikipedia: social bookmarking

---

Comments (0)

No comments have been posted.

Post a Comment

Please note Name and E-mail Address are required.

Name
E-mail Address (not displayed)
Comment (you may use HTML tags for style)
Enter Text Shown in Picture*
Comments are moderated, and will not appear on this article until the comment has been approved.