London 2012 planning application to be decided March 23rd
March 12, 2010 by Rob Powell
The planning application to use Greenwich Park at London 2012 will be decided by a meeting of the Council’s Planning Board on March 23rd.
Council planning officers have recommended to councillors that they support the controversial proposals.
If permission is granted, work will begin in Spring 2010 to prepare the Cross Country course. A test event will begin setting up in June 2011 and will be removed by August 2011.
Setting up of the actual event will begin in March 2012. The majority of the park will be closed for public access from 6th July to 3rd August 2012, with only the Children’s Playground and parts of the Flower Garden remaining open during that four week period.
Removal of equipment and structures associated with the games will take place between September – October 2012, with a reinstatement programme beginning in November 2012. The estimated date for the completion of the restoration/replacement of large areas of acid grassland is 2015.
The planning application has received the support – ranging from the enthusiastic to the conditional – of Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI), the London Borough of Lewisham, British Grooms Association, Pentathlon GB, British Equestrian Federation (BEF), Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site Executive Group, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich Foundation for the Old Royal Naval College, Royal Parks, CABE and English Heritage.
It was opposed by the British Archaelogical Trust, the Blackheath Society and Garden History Society. The Woodland Trust and Friends of Greenwich Park were opposed to the Cross Country element of the plan.
The Greenwich Society urged the council to treat this only as outline permission. No to Greenwich Olympic Equestrian Events (NOGOE) submitted a petition of 13,000 signatures opposed.
2,099 individual letters were received by the Council in response to the planning application – 36 in support and 2,063 objections.
Local campaigners, NOGOE, had hoped that the Metropolitan Commons Act 1866 would prevent the Council giving permission for the Blackheath Circus Field to be used, thus scuppering the whole proposal, but council officials have batted away this complaint, saying the restrictions cited applied only to the historic “Commissioners” of the land.
They say “the functions of the Commissioners have not devolved to the Council. Accordingly, the section imposes no restraint upon the power of the Council to determine the planning application in accordance with the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.”
The meeting will take place at the Town Hall in Woolwich on March 23rd at 7pm 6.30pm and is open to members of the public.
Spencer Drury on 2012, Schooling and the General Election: Interview Pt3
March 11, 2010 by Adam Bienkov
This is part three of Adam Bienkov’s interview with Spencer Drury – Conservative candidate for the Greenwich & Woolwich parliamentary seat and leader of the Conservatives on Greenwich Council. Part one and part two were published on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.
Olympics
Hosting the 2012 Olympics has a been a polarising issue in the borough, but the Greenwich Conservatives have so far been relatively quiet about it. Drury himself has mixed feelings about the Games.
He tells me that while the cross country equestrian events will be “fabulous for the park” and an “amazing event” he admits that “this is not the line that NOGOE would like to hear.”
However, he also thinks that the temporary stadium is a “sticking point”:
“The 20,000 seat stadium I have got serious questions about. I mean the fact that it’s a temporary stadium, I’m already thinking is that worthwhile? But where they’re planning on putting it will actually ruin the views down the park to Maritime Greenwich. I mean if you put a great big stadium in front of that then you’re ruining the very views that they seem to want. That seems to me to be self defeating.”
He also believes the Council have missed a big opportunity to capitalise on the Games.
“The Olympics have got tonnes of money and as far as I can work out Greenwich as an area is going to have no legacy from it. Well I mean I say no legacy, but there might be trees chopped down but no legacy from it in any positive physical way.”
So will the Games be good for Greenwich overall?
“Well if you could sort out the congestion as a legacy then I think that people in Greenwich would take the rough with the smooth but at the moment we are just getting the rough. We’re just getting problems from it and we’re getting damage to a much valued park although I don’t think it will be as bad as NOGOE are making out. I really don’t feel that.”
Are NOGOE representative?
“I think they are representative of a certain group of people in Greenwich but when you go out knocking on doors, I mean I was out in Greenwich last weekend and not one person mentioned it to me. Not one person. Schools, bins and recycling are the things that come up. People are more concerneed about other things. I think that is why you won’t see political parties focusing on it in a major way because on the doorstep it is not the major issue that people are concerned about.”
Schools
I’m speaking to Drury after the announcement that the John Roan school will no longer be moved to the Peninsula. He is relieved:
“The plans to put the John Roan school on the peninsula were always ridiculous. They were planning to put a bigger school on a smaller site, five stories tall with a playground on the roof. It was madness.”
While pleased about this, he believes that it is symptomatic of a wider problem:
“The Council’s education policy is in chaos frankly. We’ve still got the worst GCSE results in London. They’ve improved a lot but they’re still the worst in London. So our kids are leaving education at a substantial disadvantage to most other kids across London. And that’a huge blow to us and a massive shame”
He supports the Conservative plans to create smaller “Free Schools” run by parents:
“Parental choice is absolutely vital in this and we know parental choice is already happening in Greenwich because so many hundreds of kids at eleven go out of the borough, whether to private or to Grammar schools. But what’s interesting when you look at the figures is that they are not just going to the Grammar schools they are also going to Welling and other schools along the border with Bexley because they are better run than Greenwich schools frankly.”
The General Election
Drury is set to stand against Nick Raynsford in Greenwich later this year. I ask him if he knows him well. He tells me that while he sees him annually at the borough’s Remembrance Sunday event, he hardly ever comes across him otherwise:
“I think Clive Efford [Labour MP for Eltham] marked himself as a local MP who didn’t care about Westminster very much. Well I think that Nick Raynsford is the opposite to that. There is a local area. He’s aware that it exists, but Westminster is where his heart is.”
Like Efford, Drury has a close attachment to the area. Raised in Woolwich and a long standing councillor in Eltham, Drury still lives within the borough.
With boundary changes giving the Conservatives a real chance of winning Eltham, I ask him why he didn’t choose to stand in his home town again:
“I did [consider it] but it was for various personal reasons. My daughter had been in hospital for two months and then my wife became ill as well. It was in the run up to the selection for the parliamentary seat and I came pretty close to just packing it all in frankly. And ironically it was a letter from Chris Roberts asking if everything was okay that changed my mind.
“It made me think think that maybe politics isn’t just about doing silly stunts and playing silly games. That maybe there is a point to it”
Council leader “can’t seem to work with other people” – Spencer Drury Interview Pt2
March 10, 2010 by Adam Bienkov
This is part two of Adam Bienkov’s interview with Spencer Drury – Conservative candidate for the Greenwich & Woolwich parliamentary seat and leader of the Conservatives on Greenwich Council. Click here to read part one of the interview.
I meet Spencer Drury the day after the monthly full meeting of Greenwich Council. As usual the Conservative group raised a motion which was voted down by Labour, with Council leader Chris Roberts dismissing the debate as a “complete irrelevance.” Only a handful of voters were there to hear it.
And yet every week a newspaper promoting the Council’s agenda and featuring exclusively Labour politicians is distributed to the entire borough. Many thousands of voters will go on to read it.
So how can an opposition party ever hope to counter this imbalance?
“There is a real problem in Greenwich. Labour have been in power for 40 years and as an opposition the changing system has made it hard to make any contribution at all. We’re marginalised on scrutiny panels which are 100% chaired by Labour members and we can bring motions to Council which obviously get voted down. So the council side of it is very hard to contribute to at all. And it is hard to break through what is essentially a taxpayer funded infrastructure in place to support the Labour Party.”
So would the Conservatives close down Greenwich Time?
“Yes. Well I think that you would need some kind of communication, so I would look at the Bexley model where you have a quarterly magazine and it is a case of just what’s on in the borough. But this council spends a fortune on advertising itself and Greenwich Time has to go. It is wrong. It is morally wrong to be pumping out propaganda at the expense of the taxpayer”
But is it really just a political vehicle?
“I mean it went weekly the week after Boris was elected. Tell me that wasn’t a political decision. It was fortnightly before then and it went weekly genuinely the week afer he was elected.”
He tells me about the council’s campaign to bring the Oyster card to the Thames Clippers. For Drury this was little more than a show, with the aims of the campaign won long before the council even became involved:
“I asked for the background papers and the Council didn’t actually do anything. They just ran their campaign in Greenwich. They didn’t tell the Mayor they were running this campaign. The Mayor had already made the decision anyway and they delivered their petition to him I believe a week before the decision was announced publically. So all the decisions had been made and their influence was absolutely zero.”
So why bother to do it?
“They just wanted to stand around and pose with printed blue cards run in their own council paper saying how fabulous they are. And it’s just rotten. It’s just wasting time and money when they should be doing things that improve the lives of people in this borough.”
So what can the opposition do in these circumstances. Where can they be effective?
“Well what you can do is be a good ward member and make sure that your residents are represented. And I enjoy that and it is worth doing.”
But do the Council listen to those representations?
“To be honest we’re pretty much excluded. Chris Robert’s political approach is to make sure that the Labour party does what he wants them to and he’s got no interest in paying attention to any other views even those within the Labour party, let alone the opposition. And he will let us contribute occasionally on minor things so I’m hoping that he will be letting us contribute on the coat of arms for the Royal Borough for instance. But this is not something that is going to make much difference to many residents.”
What do you make of him personally?
“Well I think he is very divisive. With Chris you are either with him or against him. And that applies to opposition politicians but that also applies to people within the Labour party. You see very often the Labour group split over the hard line that he has taken over certain issues. And his relations with the Mayor of London are dreadful now and they were dreadful when there was a Labour Mayor of London. He just can’t seem to work with other people.”
I ask him about reports that Roberts is moving wards at the election. Is he running away from defeat?
“Well he had one of the lowest votes I believe of anyone on the council and he was comfortably lower than the other two Labour councillors in the peninsula. So there is certainly a negative attittude towards Chris and he is certainly the only person who I have spoken to people about on the doorstep and they have said “well I’m not a Conservative voter but I’m definitely not voting for Roberts”. So he definitely isn’t a popular figure”
In part three of the inteview, to be published tomorrow, Spencer Drury is asked about the 2012 Olympics, schooling in Greenwich and the forthcoming General Election campaign.
Call for clarity over East Greenwich Library
March 9, 2010 by Rob Powell
Dave Sharman, a Green Party candidate for the Peninsula ward, has written to Greenwich Council asking for assurances that East Greenwich Library will not be closed.
The library, donated to the community by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, is also home to Greenwich Community College’s Meridian Music Centre.
Greenwich Community College is currently undertaking a consultation process on the courses it can afford to offer after it had a 10% cut imposed on its “Adult Learner Responsive” budget this year.
The review involves all aspects of the college, including the Meridian Music Centre, although local Greens claim that staff have already been told the music centre will close at the end of this academic year.
Dave Sharman commented: “I hope the music college’s planned closure is not part of a wider project to do away with the library by stealth – the people of East Greenwich will not stand for that”
Cllr John Fahy, Greenwich Cabinet Member for Culture and Olympics, commented that “the Scheme [to refurbish the library] and Estimate is being costed and work will commence shortly“.
He added that he would continue to work with the Friends of East Greenwich Library and Ward Councillors ”to maximise a long term future for the building“.
Blackwall Tunnel U-turn a “huge disappointment” – Spencer Drury Interview Pt1
March 9, 2010 by Adam Bienkov
The Conservative’s parliamentary candidate for Greenwich and Woolwich has spoken of his “huge disappointment” after the Mayor broke his promise to reinstate tidal flow in the Blackwall Tunnel.
Speaking during a wide-ranging interview with Greenwich.co.uk, the current leader of the Conservatives on the council Spencer Drury said:
“I think it is a huge disappointment because it does create congestion unnecessarily. For years it worked perfectly well and I can’t see why it suddenly had to change.”
In the run up to the Mayoral elections, Boris Johnson promised to reverse the controversial decision to end tidal flow “at the earliest opportunity.”
The pledge gathered widespread support in the area and formed a major part of his transport manifesto. However, last month he admitted to LBC presenter Nick Ferrari that he would not fulfill his promise:
“If I were to impose my will and say restore that contraflow and if there was then to be some huge conflagration in that tunnel and there were fatalities I’m afraid then under the present law of corporate manslaughter brought in by this Labour government then the tragedy is that I would be liable.”
Asked about the legal implications comments, Spencer Drury replied:
“I’m not aware of the legal position so I will have to take [Boris's] word for that, but yes it is a disappointment.”
The importance of relieving congestion at Blackwall was highlighted after a recent fire in the tunnel caused widespread traffic chaos in the area. It also comes after reports that Olympic lanes will be installed in the tunnels.
However, on this issue Spencer Drury insists that the Mayor has listened:
“We’ve spoken with the Mayor’s office and they have said that this is not the case, so I don’t believe that the plan that we have seen in the public domain is the plan that we are going to end up with. I think the Mayor is listening to us on this.”
He also hit out at Greenwich Council for failing to deal with congestion in the area:
“I have always said that one of the things that you could have as a legacy from the Olympics is sorting out congestion in Greenwich, that we could get outside organisations involved and say that we want this as a legacy and I think that many more residents would be on board about the Olympics if it meant we could sort out the town centre.”
However, he suggested that the council’s plans to pedestrianise the town centre were little more than an election gimmick:
“If you were cynical about it you might suggest that it is just because there is an election coming up because there doesn’t appear to have been a proper plan behind this. The problem is that they haven’t done a study on the surrounding areas. This is a huge hub within SE London and the impact the plans would have on Lewisham and on Deptford and on the A2 is even bigger. And because the Council have not looked at it on a global scale we might have a situation where it would work for one part of Greenwich but then has a negative effect elsewhere.”
He believes that the council should instead secure funding to widen certain roads in the borough and even to build a road tunnel under Blackheath:
“Well one of my colleagues was very keen on taking one the road across the heath down into a tunnel because you could dig down very easily there and make it wider. I think that would be a lovely idea although I don’t know whether we would ever be able to afford it. But quite clearly if we want to look after our town centre we have to look at something that would be a genuine leagacy from the Olympics”
In part two of our interview Spencer Drury speaks out against plans to build a temporary stadium in Greenwich Park, says that the continued publication of Greenwich Time is “morally wrong” and claims that Chris Roberts is a “divisive” and unpopular leader of the council.
