Un-co-operative Lambeth Council: Friends of Lollard Street Adventure Playground, Kennington found it closed this morning



 
I'd just like to draw readers' attention to a letter on Lollard Street Adventure Playground published on the Kennington Association news blog this morning from Anna Tapsell who is both chair of the Kennington Association (KA) and Treasurer of the Friends of Lollard Street Adventure Playground (FOLSAP).
FOLSAP have been working for some time to prevent the closure of Lollard Street Adventure Playground and to think about how it might be run in future, given the reality of Council cuts.

It seems, according to the letter, that the Council agreed at a meeting on June 16th that £45,000 was available to potentially be allocated to a local management group were they to put forward a viable business plan.  FOLSAP report that they did develop a business plan, but were later told at a meeting on 18th August that, contrary to the previous information, £45,000 would not be available to a local management project. 

Clearly the Lollard Street Adventure playground project had to go to tender, but FOLSAP are alleging that their experience with the Council has not been one of co-operation.  Given that our Co-operative council are not appearing terribly co-operative, perhaps constituents of other councils should take heed.  FOLSAP say the process began too late and that councillors/officers have presented mixed and non-transparent messages.  They raise a question as to the "propriety of the tender process"

In Lambeth, the letter asserts, having such playgrounds open is a "safeguarding issue", given that many parents leave their children there in place of after-school care.  Most worryingly, when Ms Tapsell visited the playground this morning, she found:

"just a scrawled ungrammatical note pinned to the gate saying that it would be closed this week. No explanation or other information about when it might be open. Two little boys were there with their table tennis bats. Their parents were back at work."

Additionally, the playground will now, according to the letter, only be open for one session on a weekday!  It won't be open on Saturdays at all.  Back on 7th April, at the KOV meeting, Cllr Harrison re-assured local residents that Lollard Street Adventure Playground would not be closing.   Arguably, one could liken a playground that runs for only one session a week to a closure in everything but name. Moreover, there are still questions to be asked about why it's closed this week, and why no information is available concerning its re-opening.  Indeed, opening the playground for such limited hours is likely to lead to it becoming less popular.  See the case of the Kennington Park Adventure playground in which two playgrounds will merge on to one smaller site to make way for housing, given alleged non-use of the land... where is it?  Ahh, yes, this is what I wrote back in September 2010:

The defence offered (by the architect) in favour of consolidating the [Kennington Park] site was that the One O'Clock club only opens for 3 hours per day for 4 days per week.  The One O'Clock club is apparently "not well used" (at peak times, the architect suggested that 20 children use it)...

Even more worrying, given recent civil unrest near these parts, is Lambeth's failure to understand that adventure playgrounds are a public place off the streets for children and young people to gather.  To fail to allow local organisations any say in the supposedly mutual process of running facilities is distinctly un-co-operative and short changes residents.  Short-term cost cutting of youth services will likely only lead to further social unrest.  A recent report from the Department of Education notes that a quarter of excluded primary school students expelled in 2009-2010 were from Lambeth.  There's no point in having police officers visit primary schools to warn children away from gang life if no alternative facilities are in place for their use and their parents are not at home to supervise on account of being at work.

It would be really good to see whether our MP still has any teeth when it comes to influencing the local authority and working for the good of less-affluent north Lambeth residents.

Glasshouse Walk Playground Consultation in Vauxhall - Saturday 30th July

On Saturday (30th July) from 12 noon to 2pm, there will be a consultation organised by VGERTA (Vauxhall Gardens Estate Residents and Tenants Association) held at the Carmelita Centre (corner of Vauxhall Walk and Jonathan Street) on the future of the Glasshouse Walk Playground.

Visitors will be presented with three options for the future of the playground after two sets of community consultation.  They're also offering cake...The playground campaign has been the result of months of hard work on the part of VGERTA, and I'd urge local residents to attend and look at the options for the future of the playground.

In addition, VGERTA have  produced a video that you can watch showing the playground in its somewhat dilapidated state and in case you're not sure of the exact location.  I'm hoping this is the "before" representation and that the residents will  soon be able to produce an "after" offering  too:

Need support for new playground for Vauxhall Gardens Estate Residents and Tenants Association

Vauxhall Gardens Estate Residents and Tenants Association (VGERTA) need support in their attempt to win a £15,000 bursary for new playground equipment. They're currently trying to upgrade and revive a playground that lies on the heart of the estate.

The bursary campaign, Ready for Ten, is being run by Patsy Kensit and VGERTA have nominated their own playground to receive the funds.  You may remember that they progressed quite a long way, but were ultimately unsuccessful with a similar campaign that Bovril ran last year.  I know how much time and energy it takes for residents to win small amounts of money to upkeep playgrounds and I really want to wave the flag for whoever it is at VGERTA that remains so persistent.

Please do consider supporting them by registering and leaving a comment on the Ready for Ten VGERTA playground page here and there's also a link to their playground video on that site.  I registered and you can see my comment on the site:

It's very easy to register and make a comment, and winning the bursary would be such a boost for local children on the VGERTA estate.  I've noted:

"The Vauxhall Gardens Estate playground would strongly benefit from receiving a bursary for their playground.. This playground is in quite a run down area of inner London in a location that contains a smaller amount of green space per head than allowed for by government recommendations. In the surrounding area, at least three staffed Adventure playgrounds are at threat of closure so ensuring that there is somewhere for local children to play that will remain open is vital for keeping fit and teaching play skills. The current playground is rather run down and residents have been exploring a whole variety of routes to improve it, but in an age of government cuts, this is looking less and less viable..."

(Good?) news from the Triangle Playground & community news from Archbishop Tenison

I've been informed that Archbishop Tension School have published their first ever community news sheet.  On account of the fact that we're a caring, sharing blog that always represents two sides of any argument, I'll let you take a look:

I don't recall ever seeing an Archbishop Tension School community newsletter before, but perhaps I'm wrong and an eagle eyed reader will inform me that this is part of a long tradition.  My guess is that the letter was released because the Triangle Association have strengthened their campaign.

Now, whilst I'd acknowledge that there might be no current plans for Archbishop Tension School to take over the Triangle Adventure Playground and replace it with a car park, I simply cannot agree with their line (p1) "neither the school or Lambeth Council has ever had any plans for a car park on this site".  I make no comment other than to point you to the architectural plan 6 (the one Lambeth Council chose), which clearly shows that one corner of the space occupied by The Triangle is marked as "parking".  Also, I've still not had any good answer from the Council on the question of why plan 6 was chosen?  There are 5 other architectural plans which don't require the use of the Triangle's land for the expansion of Archbishop Tension School, and the Council chose the only one that required land from The Triangle.  Why?

In an attempt to be generous, the school acknowledge that they "desperately need more space for play..." and "want our school facilities to also be used by local residents".  But since the land is not theirs, why is the question posed in this manner?  Why do the school not graciously request permission of the Triangle Association to use the Triangle Playground, instead of attempting a take over and then "permitting" community use?  Also, the school argue that they have "strong links with the community in Oval".  Please could somebody comment on this point?  Mention of "community youth groups" is made, so it would be useful to hear which groups currently use the school site.  Also, I'd like to see a breakdown of the number of local people who attended IT training sessions at the school who were not already affiliated as parents.  Has anybody attended one of the school's IT sessions that could comment further on this?

Anyhow... The leaflet above seems to affirm that the school expansion will not take place (the BSF plans have been shelved by the Con Dems), but still states, "Once there is a clearer picture about the future refurbishment of the school we will discuss the possibilities.  The school desperately needs more space for play..."  This suggests, does it not, that the school intends to continue its attempts to get its hands on the Triangle.  It seems likely that the school is going to continue to insist that the Triangle be given to it on the grounds that the plans belatedly developed for the site under BSF represent the best use for the land and will provide a play facility for the local community adequate to replace the Triangle.  The point is though, that the Triangle Playground should not be "up gor grabs".   Founded by Marjorie Porter MBE in 1957, it is the oldest Adventure Playground in London.  She remained active on its committee up to the age of 97 and thought of the playground as one of her "greatest achievements".

There is a strong argument to be made, I think, in separating play institutions from educational institutions.  The organisation Fair Play for Children was brought into being, in part, through a letter to The Times from Bishop Trevor Huddleston, who stated in 1972:

"Since the Plowden Report it has been recognized that there must be Educational Priority Areas involving more generous financal provision from the state.  But, as the recent National Child Development Study From Birth to Seven makes clear... "equality of educational opportunity cannot be achieve solely by improving our educational institutions"... It is the total environment that must be be changed.  The local authority, the local community and many voluntary agencies in East London are doing their best to provide recreational facilities and opportunities during the school holidays.  But they are up against vast environmental difficulities in terms of disued canals, dangerous motorways and, above all, lack of open space."  Read the rest of the letter here (bold emphasis mine).

In my view, the school should be permitted to use the Triangle playground land, but it should not be handed over to them.  Play should be safeguarded alongside, but separate from education.  It's too easy to put up temporary classrooms in playground areas when schools become overcrowded, and a separate organisation can guard against this tendency more adequately.  There is an excellent Association that runs the Triangle playground for the good of all local children, and it would be a shame, in these days of an apparently resurgent co-operative movement, to abandon this good will.

But in the meantime, there's some good news... Cllr Robbins has advised the Triangle Association that it is his intention not to close the playground. However, the Triangle Association have requested a meaningful lease from the council in order to enable them to raise funds, and have requested that the council withdraw its proceedings agaisnt the Triangle's voluntary trustees.  The Triangle Association also wish to discuss the option for pupils at the Archbishop Tension School to use the playground at break times (geat idea).

Also, it has been suggested to me that there's an alternative option for expansion of the Archbishop Tension School, and for releasing more place space for them.  The car park on the school site could be immediately converted into playground space, and the school could take up an offer (from the Metropolitan Housing Trust) of one of the secure underground car-parks on the Ashmole Estate.  This would immediately release approx. 600m2 of playground space.

How Cllr Steve Reed let down local children and Kate Hoey or The Triangle (ongoing saga), Part 3 or

So, you'll know (if you've kept up with the Triangle Playground saga) that the Triangle Adventure Playground is a community playground, whose removal is desired by Archbishop Tension School because they wish to use the land to expand their premises. Lambeth Council seem to have made it their goal to evict the Triangle Association from the playground (see Part 1 here) in anticipation of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) expansion at Archbishop Tenison.  Unfortunately, many BSF projects have since fallen through (ConDem cuts) and so the school expansion can't take place, but the Council still wish to evict the Triangle Adventure Playground.  Why?

In part 2 of the saga, I explained that of the six school expansion options drawn up by Atkins architects for Lambeth Council, the Council had opted for the only plan which involved the removal of the Triangle Adventure Playground.  The playground site did not need to be used to expand the school, as the 5 alternative options attest. The playground is a much loved play space and resource for local young people, desperately needed, I'd argue, in an area with high levels of urban deprivation where there isn't much room for creative, adventurous play.  (It needs also to be made clear that much of Archbishop Tenison's intake is drawn from the borough of Southwark, so whilst it's a good local secondary school, it doesn't /necessarily/ benefit its Lambeth neighbours).  Again, I'm not convinced we've got to the bottom of the matter of why Lambeth Council chose option 6, the playground removal option.

Today we are going to move on to part 3 of the saga.  This was the very interesting piece of news that I mentioned on Twitter last week.  I agreed to allow the South London Press to print it first, so you can go and read the full article (it's not behind their pay wall) just here.  But it boils down to the fact that local children from the Triangle Playground went with their parents and Kate Hoey MP to present a petition to Cllr Steve Reed (the leader of Lambeth Council) against closing their playground.  And Cllr Reed failed to show up.  So the children (who had received permission to leave school early) stood on the steps of the Town Hall with their parents to present their petition.  And yet no Council leader appeared in order to receive it.  Shame on him.  It was Steve Reed's office that had specified the time of the meeting and he gave no explanation or apology for his absence whilst he left everybody waiting for half an hour.  Kate Hoey was kind enough to tell the SLP that she didn't see it as a snub to her, considering the children and their parents to have been the ones snubbed, but make of that what you will.

Feel free to try and defend the name of the good Councillors of Lambeth (and we do have some), but letting down local children who've been let out of school early to meet with you is unacceptable behaviour.  If Mr Cobb is right that Cllr Reed is climbing the greasy pole to stand as the next Labour MP for Vauxhall, his failure to receive something as simple as a petition from the community should be highlighted on account of what it says about him as a politician.  The odd thing (no surprises there) is the slant given to the whole matter by the South Lambeth Press.  No mention there of the lovely leader's absence.  Oh, no, October's Lambeth Life (p3) just reports; "Parents and children from the Triangle Adventure Playground have been collecting signatures for the petition and handed it over to the Council Deputy Leader Jackie Meldrum last month."  Wonder why that might have been, then!  Lambeth Life even has the temerity to argue that there's another adventure playground in Kennington Park, with no mention of  their proposed reduction in the size of the One O'Clock club or closure of Kennington park's Children's Centre.  This is where accusations of Lambeth Life "propaganda sheet" rightly abound, (and I'm no fan of supporting the SLP's sex ad rag either).  Thank goodness for local blogs :-) :-)

But Lambeth Life seem to assume that the Triangle Adventure Playground has actually closed.  Cllr Pete Robbins says "We appreciate that this is a much-loved play area, so it was a difficult decision to close it.".  I was unaware that the Triangle had closed (there'll be protests before that happens, no doubt).  But more importantly, I don't understand why the Council are claiming that the Triangle Playground has closed all the time they do not have any money to expand Archbishop Tenison School.  There is no longer any BSF money, so there's no reason to evict the playground.  There was and is no "difficult choice" to be made in light of the fact that the school simply cannot expand at present.  But the Lambeth Life article also seems to invent a kind of double speak.  In Cllr Robbin's mind, the Triangle has closed, since "it /was/" a difficult decision to close it", but Lambeth Life's anonymous columnist maintains it's still open, after all, "A spokesman said there were no immediate plans to close the playground down...".  So what's it to be?

We still have no explanation from  Lambeth about why they can't use any of the other 5 designs by Atkins that do not require the eviction of the Triangle Playground.  Answers on a postcard, please.
 

The Triangle continued. Why are Lambeth Council seeking to evict the playground in the face of alternative options?

In early August I wrote an article, The Triangle playground vs. Archbishop Tenison School, on Lambeth Council's refusal to renew the playground's lease, despite the fact that Archbishiop Tenison has had its Building Future Schools project scrapped by the ConLib government.  In that article, I mentioned that the Triangle Playground have set up a petition that readers could sign to support the playground, but I noted that I couldn't understand why the Triangle Association thought the Council wanted to turn the site into a car park, when the Council had denied their intentions in this FOI request.  I have now obtained a little more information to make sense of the issues.

In the meantime, there have been further developments.  Clare Casey of the SLP has covered the story pithily.  The SLP noted on 26th August that Jim Clancey was summonsed to court in August and asked to return in October this year.  According to Casey's article, Lambeth Council are "determined to press ahead with plans" and Cllr Robbins has added his view to the mix, 'It’s sad that the pupils at Archbishop Tenison’s do not have enough space to play in.'.  I can't understand why, if the school expansion has not yet taken place, the pupils don't have the space to play in.  Does that mean that the school has increased its intake without first ensuring that they had enough space?  The Evening Standard picked up the story a week or so ago in a paragraph here, so it seems an apposite time to explore the the matter further.

In July 2008, when Lambeth Council were considering how they might expand Archbishop Tenison, they had architects (Atkins) draw up a number of documents to show what the expansion might look like.  (All of the drawings are shown below).  As you can see, out of 6 options (including the control option), only the final version of the drawing requires the swallowing up of the ground upon which the Triangle playground sits.  So the question is why the Council opted for that version and not one of the others...  Why did Lambeth Council choose option 6?

I've received information that suggests that one of the incumbent Oval ward councillors (one who is said to have close ties with Cllr Steve Reed), has not responded to any of the letters sent on the issue of the Triangle playground.  Is there anybody on the Council prepared to stand up and defend the borough's playgrounds?  The One O'Clock club in Kennington faces losing land, the Triangle faces eviction and Lollard Street Adventure Playground have had to set up a Friends group to ensure that it is well supported.  In the meantime, I'd be particularly pleased to hear from anybody that could point me to a report on when the Ethelred Youth Centre was last inspected?  Who owns the lease on that piece of land?

Perhaps somebody (councillor or otherwise) could shed some light here on why the BFS (Building Future Schools) team chose option 6 when there were 5 other perfectly good options for the school expansion?  Perhaps I'm wrong.  If the Council do not intend to turn the Triangle playground into a car park, as they remarked here, then why exactly is the Triangle land needed for the expansion of the school?  I think there are probably more questions than answers on this particular matter.

Kennington Park to lose play area to new housing (see plans) - is this the best deal for local children?

Further to Friday's post re. the development on St Agnes Place, Kennington Park, I had a chance to attend the planning consultation.  There's no positive way of putting the playground news.  The consolidation of Kennington Park Adventure Playground and the One O'Clock club would reduce the size of the One O'Clock club site quite substantially.  There are good arguments on the side of consolidating them and other good arguments in favour of retaining the land. I had some long conversations today which I'll summarise below.  In the meantime, here are the boards:

I assumed that the proposed development was London and Quadrant only.  Actually, there are two separate proposed developments (London & Quadrant and Family Mosaic), which happen to share an architect.  The 58 proposed new units which I mentioned yesterday (and which are shown above on the boards headed in green) are those that would be developed by London & Quadrant.  As you can see from the Masterplan, there are a number of positive features eg. the proposed cycle route (it's not clear from the diagram whether this runs from Bolton Crescent/Camberwell New Road) or whether it starts abruptly on St Agnes Place, but it's a good idea if extended to Camberwell New Road.  Also, the new development would form part of an attempt to join the northern section of Kennington Park with the southern section (without forcing people to walk all the way around the edge).  That's something that has been advocated for a long while.

50% social housing is the Lambeth Council target, so one can't complain (although that includes both socially rented and part-ownership).  I like the fact that the building seems sensibly proportioned (not too high) and would fit into the park well (there seem to be no nasty quirks that might grate in 50 years time).

The exact layout, flat size and has been made known at the time of consultation (something some of the other developers might adhere to).  One might point out that the four bedroom houses are considerably larger than the three bedroom homes, and are only available on the private market.  But that would be quibbling, right?  I mean, as the architect pointed out, it's just not possible to build social housing these days without having it paid for by private money.

I haven't got any immediate ideas how the Section 106 money from this development should be spent.  Since much of the housing will be aimed at families, there's a sense in which it might be useful to put it towards strengthening local schools.  I can't think of how it would be invested in transport in any useful way (since the proposed cycle route is already built in to the plans), but would be interested in comments, as usual.

The boards above (bordered in purple) now outline the Family Mosaic scheme, which is much smaller (18 proposed units) and would occupy the space that formerly belonged to the Rastafarian Temple.  I was told by the developer that Family Mosaic have a block further north in the park, and so they'd be performing a land swap with Lambeth Council to move the new housing closer together.  

As you can see from the board entitled "Housing", 100% of the development will be shared ownership.  There's not a lot more to say about the Family Mosaic development as far as I can see.

The next boards all relate to the playground itself (of which I have more to say below).  

From the board (above top), it's immediately clear that transposing the red area (on the left) on to the red area on the right that an immense amount of green play space is lost.  Clarification from the architect confirmed that 50% of the One O'Clock land would be lost (it looked like more to me).  However, this figure is the result of a clever little work around.  Apparently, during the One O'Clock club opening time, a special fold up chain link fence can be unrolled and so the club can be "extended into the green link" so that parts of the green link are taken over for the benefit  of the One O'Clock club.  If the special folding extension is /not/ included, the core One O'Clock club land on the /new/ site would measure 350 metres squared.  The old site offers the existing One O'Clock club 1600 metres squared.  You do the maths.  Is it worth losing the land?  

I really like the designs for the new playground (particularly the building that you can climb into via a ladder, and then climb through, and exit using a slide), but it perhaps doesn't make up for the loss of actual land.  The architect was particularly excited about these points, and they'd also considered the security of the building very carefully (appropriate use of steel shutters).

The defence offered (by the architect) in favour of consolidating the site was that the One O'Clock club only opens for 3 hours per day for 4 days per week.  The One O'Clock club is apparently "not well used" (at peak times, the architect suggested that 20 children use it), but that's somewhat convenient, considering that the council controls both the club and the land!  It's in the Council's interest to ensure that the One O'Clock club doesn't get enough funding/publicity so that it can then be claimed to be underused so that nobody objects to the new development.  Another more intriguing argument offered runs along these lines...  Theoretically, even less space is lost because "for most of the year, the two playgrounds are not even open at the same time".  The conflict occurs because in the holidays, the One O'Clock club opens in the middle of the Adventure playground day.

A further defence (again, from the architect) was offered such that the loss of land would be counteracted by using the new (smaller) site more efficiently.  The new building would occupy a corner spot (to be shared by both clubs) so that land use is maximised and so that there'd by more space for young people to play.  For modern needs, apparently, the One O'Clock club site is "just excessive".  But for future needs, who knows?  

Additionally... (again, from the architect), "the idea of bringing these two functions into one building is reducing maintenance and running costs and securing the long term future of the site."  "It's also cheaper to build a bigger building than two smaller ones so that more money is left to put into external space provision".  Such candour from an architect is quite extraordinary!  I must have looked a little surprised, so the architect suggested that the dispute wasn't so much their issue, but a matter for the council and the developer.  A conversation with the developer was in order.

How was it that two developments proposed in partnership with Lambeth Council resulted in less playground space for local people?  The developer noted that the entire St Agnes Place site is brownfield and designated for housing purposes in Lambeth's UDP.  But Lambeth didn't like the idea of just sticking a new housing development in the middle of the park, so they suggested performing a land swap which would swap the Adventure playground land with the land for new housing.  I pointed out that it wasn't exactly a swap, which the developer conceded and admitted that initially some land would have been lost from the Adventure playground.  However, the initial plan didn't go ahead because feedback from the planners suggested that the Adventure playground should not be separated  from the One O'Clock Club, and that ideally the two youth facilities should share a building.  Welcome to the future everybody.

The developer felt that the wooden play equipment on the sites was rotting and that there's not the money to reinvest (highly likely).  The local children have been consulted and they're quite in favour of the new proposals.  The developer admitted quite openly that there would be a loss of play space, but not a loss of open park.  That's possibly the best argument in favour of consolidating the land, but I'd be interested to hear what other locals think.  Is it less important to lose a youth facility that is located in a park?

What concerns me is not the fact that the One O'Clock club is currently under utilised as space, but that once a housing development is embarked upon, the land can never be returned to the public domain for the use of young people.  I /like/ the housing plans.  I /like/ the newly designed playground and building.  But I don't like the fact that the new play space is significantly smaller than it ever was and that land won't be regainable for young people in years to come.  Residents will need to decide if it's a sacrifice that they're prepared to make.

The architect and the developer agreed that the space to be utilised by the new playground was still a question open for debate.  It was agreed that hearing residents views was indeed the reason for consultation, so pressure put on the council or providing feedback into the consultation might still lead to revised plans.  The question is whether it's worth the fight.  Increasing the amount of playground space could potentially reduce the amount of social housing.  If the same number of units were to be built, and the playground space increased, the units would end up being smaller.  When one comes to ask how the common good might best be served, there's a sense of being presented with a question that has a "lose/lose" answer, and the upcoming cuts will only serve to sharpen this problem.

St Agnes Place (site of old Rastafari Temple) housing consultation & playground space

London and Quadrant are holding a consultation on their proposals to build 58 homes on St Agnes Place.  I'm afraid I'm rather late with this post, but there's still an opportunity to view the plans tomorrow (Saturday) at St Agnes Church (SE11 4BB) between 10am and 1pm.

St Agnes Place has a disputed and intriguing past, with the first house on the street squatted in 1969.  According to the wikipedia entry here, the council obtained a demolition order for the street and evicted the residents of 21 properties back in 2005.  However, that still left in place the Rastafari temple which was forcibly closed by the Council in 2007.  The residents were removed and subject to a police raid due to allegations of the site being used for drug dealing.  When the police raided, very little evidence of drug possession (other than marijuana) was found.  However, that conveniently left the temple free of residents and the council were then of course able to demolish it.   I'm not sure whether the worshipers of the Rastafari Temple were ever able to find another site to rent.  Does anybody know?

One pertinent matter at issue is the question of the One O'Clock Club and the Kennington Adventure playground.  We all know that cuts in youth provision from Lambeth may well be pending, but most people would not agree that developers would be allowed to build over the sites of an existing playground without agreeing to the provision of a new playground area of equivalent size. 

There is a possibility that some of the play space on the current Kennington Adventure playground site would be lost to a new housing development, which I'd contend should not be allowed to occur.  I'm unclear from the leaflets available so far (I'll scan and post these ASAP) whether any new playground would be of an equivalent size and contain the same facilities.  Note that in 2008, some of the local residents and children protested against the Council's plans to move the playground to a smaller and less suitable site.  I'm not sure (before anybody starts to shout) quite whether the new plans would mean the replacement of the current playground with one of a smaller size, so I think clarification from the Council about their plans in this regard would be useful.  (This matter bears a worrying resemblance with the Council's attempt to allow Archibshop Tenison School to build over the Triangle playground in Oval, and I've another post about that shortly.)

Edit:  See here for a more recent post on St Agnes Place consultation with accompanying plans and proposals.

Triangle Adventure Playground vs. Archbishop Tenison School

Cast your mind back to the Parliamentary hustings, held back in April in St Mark's Church and you might remember that the "Triangle" featured briefly in questions to the candidates.  The Triangle is an Adventure Playground that sits just outside of the SE11 border in Ashmole Street.  The site is leased to the Triangle Adventure Playground Association (who are a charitable foundation) by Lambeth Council.  The Triangle is the oldest Adventure Playground to have remained on a consistent site in London, but was founded at a similar time to Lollard Street Adventure playground.  (It's worth noting at this point that residents must keep a close eye on the Lollard site since its future is potentially tied up in the future of the former Lilian Baylis School, and all of our adventure playgrounds are very valuable community resources).

Mention the Triangle to local councillors, and you might receive well-worn looks of despair.  Essentially, Archbisop Tenison School needed space to expand their play facilities.  The school /was/ due to receive money from the Building Future Schools programme which would allow them to provide schooling for an additional 150 boys, and Lambeth Council were left in the slightly awkward position that they would essentially need to sacrifice the Community Playground in order to turn it into a school playground that could be used on an out-of-hours basis by the community.  A shared solution was being sought (as at 15/10/2009) according to this FOI request, but since mention of the site still seems contentious, it would appear that no joint solution has been found.  I've also found that wading through the documentation on the matter is confusing.  The FOI email seems to suggest that Archbishop Tenison needed the space for a car park (Lambeth Council firmly refuted this) and reports from elsewhere seemed to suggest that the site would only be closed temporarily in order to allow the school to complete some building work (which is what seemed to be at issue during the hustings).  I am going to assume, unless somebody says to the contrary, that the plan was to give the Triangle Adventure Playground to Archbishop Tension School, and it is this that the Playground committee are objecting to (particularly since many students at the school are not resident in Lambeth).

At the hustings, Kate Hoey appeared to blame Council Officers / council machinery for some of the decisions taken on the project.  More recently, the South London Press published an article (KA news blog has a copy here) which suggests that Kate Hoey has written to the Council, asking them to "save" the playground.  This is an interesting request, but is perhaps not unachievable, given the recent Lib/Tory pact to abolish the Future for Schools program.  If the Archbishop Tension School can't expand, then there's not really much reason to absorb the playground (as Kate Hoey noted) and she has called for the Council to reconsider their decision to close the Triangle.

What's important to note though, is that Kate Hoey has been campaigning for a shared solution (which does appear on the face of it to be common sense).  Ms Hoey doesn't want to see the Triangle disappear, nor does she want the school to be deprived of extra play space.  But the SLP article notes that,

"a council spokesman said the local authority would still not be renewing the lease when it expires in November."

Now surely anybody can see that that is not a good decision.  The school cannot expand due to the failure of the Building Future Schools program (which is a very bad thing), but the Triangle Adventure Playground cannot continue because the Council are refusing to renew the lease.  Are the Council attempting to de-facto hand the playground to the school, ousting the good work put in on behalf of local children in the 344th (out of 354) most deprived area of child deprivation in the UK?  Yes. Councillor Pete Robbins maintains that Lambeth Council are committed to expanding the school and that more space is needed for classrooms and play space (how they'll do this without any money is unknown).  I'm not sure whether Lambeth Council fund the Triangle at all, but it's quite clear that Lambeth Council will be cutting youth services, which might have something to do with the decision.

It seems to me that this would be a very good opportunity to start practicing all of this Co-operative Council malarky.  I'd have thought that Polly Toynbee (who will sit on the co-op's board), who has always been an advocate for the disenfranchised ought to be concerned about the removal of the playground.  Has anybody written to her?  I wouldn't personally wish to take on a Toynbee-Hoey coalition!  The Triangle are talking about organising a sit-in in November and waiting for forcible removal by bailiffs.  Surely it needn't come to that?  But if it does, perhaps we can arrange for some of the members of the venerable associations, organisations and adventure playgrounds in the area to at least organise a large enough sit-in that the bailiffs have a difficult task on their hands!  If you wish to sign the Triangle Association's petition, you can do so here, but they seem still to be using the misleading information that the site would be turned into a car-park, which from what I can discern is not quite true.

Schools in Lambeth will have to expand, but why not add secondary school places to the borough by using the already existing empty Beaufoy building?  A situation in which schools are having to compete with youth facilities for space is completely unacceptable, and I do wonder whether, perhaps led and arbitrated by Kate Hoey, the Triangle Adventure Playground Association might not be able to meet with the governors of the Archbishop Tension School to come to a mutual arrangement?

Part 2... continued here.

Bovril award money - vote for Vauxhall Playground facelift

VGERTA (The Vauxhall Gardens Estate Residents and Tenants Association) have reached the final round of Bovril's "Outdoor revival" to receive some money for a playground.

However, they need lots of votes to help them be chosen as a winning project. I would urge you to vote for them on Bovril's site here. It would be really good to see some money going to a local project (bearing in mind that sadly, neither Kennington nor Vauxhall park achieved enough votes to win Boris' makeover), and the VGERTA playground is slap bang in the heart of SE11. The Bovril site is a bit Flash-ridden, but if you can manage to get in to vote, please do.

Their spiel is as follows:

"We live on a deprived housing estate and we have a neglected playground for kids that is used constantly by families with young children. The play equipment has worn out over the years and there has been no refurbishment to the playground. It has been left to deteriorate but that it is still used. It could do with a face lift and some new safety flooring, some new picnic tables, swings, roundabouts climbing apparatus but it needs a make over. Vauxhall Gardens Estate Residents and Tenants Association (VGERTA) represents more than 2,000 people that live in the estate. The playground would be key to revive our local community and give kids a place to play and have fun safely."