Southwark Living StreetsMonthly Meeting - Minutes – Thursday July18th 2013

Present: Eileen Goodway, Jeremy Leach,Peter Wright,Judith Harries, Alastair Hanton, Clare Armstrong,Craig Stansfield, Barbara Pattinson, Cllr Graham Neale, Cllr David Noakes.

1. Southwark Parks Conference. Peter Wright and Craig Stansfield went to the recent conference at ChumleighGardens in Burgess Park. Green Links was less of a focus for the Friends of Parks groups who attended and Peter felt that SLS would need to pursue this issue if it was to be taken forward.

Peter showed his presentation of the differences of a walk from E&C to Burgess Park either going via the Old Kent Roador the East Walworth Green Link. This had been well received at the conference. Suggestions for small improvements to it included a map to show the start and end points and a few words to point out the different routes and where people had reached.

Cllr Noakes thought that the idea of Green Links had a good future and that overall people would be in strongly favour of walking and cycling on green links.

Alastair suggested that accompanying Peter’s presentation could be some indicators of the health benefits and air pollution advantages of the Green Link. Eileen suggested monitoring levels of air pollution between the two different routes and including that information in the presentation.

The meeting felt that it would be a good idea to do propose three more green links to keep the momentum going.Barbara suggested doing this as part of a whole vision for longer term Green Link development across the borough.

2. Old Kent Road.Craig has been on a walkabout with Southwark Planning Policy along the OKR and was interested in why the walkabouts were being done. Peter said he went on a similar walk a few years ago. Cllr Neale said that there was a conversation beginning about the future of the OKR. He suggested low walls along the sides of the road could absorb noise and air pollution and reduce their impact on the surrounding residential areas where the footway widths allow. It was understood that an OKR Area Action Plan would be adopted by 2016 but it was unclear as to what influence Southwark would have when TfL manages the road.

The 1980s vision of out of town shopping centres appears as a failure and the key issue is domination by traffic.

The idea was for the group to revisit the NKR/Bricklayers Arms and OKR in the Septembermeeting and include too discussion of the possibilities for cycling along the OKR.

3. Mayor of London Roads Task Force Report and TfL Response.

Alastair said that TfLhas taken the opportunity to say that there can now be a strategy as to what roads are for in terms of accommodating them as places as well as for moving people. By having this the people who want to improve places have a lever for action such as at the E&C which needs to play a more important role as a place than it can at present. Alastair suggested that the deputy Mayor has played it cleverly and to the advantage of the LS agenda.

4. Redevelopment of the E&C Roads Network inc Northern Roundabout. Eileen was concerned about the focus on the roundabout and stressed the importance of looking at the wider network of roads.

5. Blackfriars Road SPD. The consultation about the SPD opened at the beginning of July and lasts for 3 months. There is great potential for the road owing to its width and length and the fact that it is currently relatively underused. SLSwillwork on a response having been involved in a) the walkabouts, b) in the sessions around the exhibition at ErlangHouse, c) the presentation on Blackfriars Rd at the NLA and d) conversations Clare has had with TfL.Eileen and Alastair agreed to work together on a response from SLS. The consultation ends on 12thSeptember. Clare said that the traffic is going very fast in the area. There is interest too in St George’s Circus which hopefully will be improved and this is included in the SPD. Cllr Noakes noted that there are a lot of consented planning applications/others in the pipeline that might deliver another 2,000 dwellings. TfL have previously created a Blackfriars Rd vision and that is likely to be updated. Bankside NP has been confirmed for both the Forum and Area – a vote is likely in 2014. A Southbank NP being developed too around the OXOTower.

Some money has been identified for improvements on Great Suffolk St around the White Hart PH and there are plans for 3 more phases as a future pleasant route for people going from the Tate to the south.

6. Camberwell – Update.Eagerly awaiting news of the area-based scheme. Inviting TfL and Southwark to the SE5 Forum for CamberwellAGM. Looks like CS5 will be built and then the town centre scheme will be implemented afterwards. Pocket spaces are an interesting issue as they appear unfunded and Southwark at present can only do 2 out of the 6 that have been identified. Barbara was very excited about the Pocket Spaces project as that is distinctively for Camberwell.

9. Walworth Road – Southern Section.The ideas in the report were supported by the meeting.

11. Any other issues people would like to raise.

The planning application for Brandon House will be discussed by the planning committee in early September. No response to date to our letter about 20mph on BHS.

Judith mentioned the land at end of Rye Lane that could be a pocket park that SLS made a submission in relation to – the proposals that were the subject of the traffic order that we commented on have already been implemented. They make Rye Lane that much harder to walk along.

Champion Hill rat running – Barbara raised the idea of a no left turn off Dog Kennel Hill to reduce rat running in the area.

Next meeting date 7pmThursday 19thSeptember– 56 Southwark Bridge Rd SE1 0AS.

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