Another last minute 'consultation' announcement from Lewisham Council has been brought to my attention via the News Shopper.
Apparently two exhibitions/consultations are to be held at the Albany this week where residents can find out about the plans for refurbishment of Douglas Way, which is set to begin in January next year.
This is the first I've heard about either the meetings, or the plans for Douglas Way (which you may recall me moaning about on previous posts - musing as to why it wasn't included in the existing regeneration/improvement plans). Take a look at the council's own page here and you'll see I'm not making this up.
I'm delighted to find that improvements ARE planned, and interested to hear about them. By dint of good luck I'll be around for one of the events, but a bit more (or indeed any!) notice would have been useful for many people I'm sure.
It seems the council has been so busy making videos about all its regeneration plans that it has forgotten about good old fashioned publicity. You know, the type which involves actually telling people about meetings and consultations and so on. Or has everyone else had this notification/seen posters etc and I'm just missing it?
Events are at the Albany.
Wednesday 29th Sept 4-7pm
Saturday 2nd October 10am-12.
6 comments:
Well found, DD! I've seen no publicity whatsoever about this and the council website doesn't exactly feature it. Consultation gets to resemble more and more some kind of Easter Egg hunt...
I'd heard nothing, even though I live a minute's walk from Douglas Way and regularly walk along it.
I've just been along to the Deptford Town Centre Regeneration place under the arches in Resolution Way. I'll do a post later when I have time but it got quite surreal. I asked about the consultation you'd flagged up, they responded ''We've done it'' Apparently there had been a consultation event carried out on Friday and Saturday. Neither did they know what I was talking about when I mentioned the Albany meetings and I had to get them to visit the council's site so they knew what I was talking about.
We were talking at cross purposes. Their consultation had involved 2 affected blocks on Giffen Street and 1 affected block on Reginald Road, with no consultation for Frankham House neighbours. So there's one consultation nobody knew anything about. The consultation I was talking about that they knew nothing about was concerning the Douglas Way changes.
The whole consultation is so fragmented that even they don't know who's doing what.
*sigh*
interesting to hear that consultation is taking place three months before work begins. Is three months really long enough to respond to consultation feedback, re-fashion plans and carry out a tendering process? tendering out to contractors and receiving back tenders, selecting the contractor..........have Lewisham really become this efficient?
Having seen the proposals today, its clear to me that a lot more work is needed to arrive at an appropriate response to our market square. I think the designer is capable, I personally like what he has achieved at the new Macmillan park. In the case of the market square however, Im not sure that his better ideas (many of which were voiced in discussion but which did not appear on the display boards) have had the support of his client.
I agree that 3 months is not enough time for this particular oil tanker to alter its course. Its been suggested, for purely commercial reasons, that January would be the best month for the works to take place as its a quiet month for market traders. But these works will take more than a month to complete so wouldn't it be better to wait for Giffin Square to be made ready and for the market to be decanted there for a time? (there may be other alternative venues too)
This would allow for proper consultation to take place and for our ambitions and ideas for one of the most significant of Deptfords public spaces to be given proper hearing.
I will be putting this thought forward to Lewisham but I don't hold out much hope of a reprieve.
Post a Comment