Our Children’s future is definitely NOT safe in Lewisham Council’s Hands!

I write this as one of many hundreds residents who use the Leegate Centre and Sainsburys in Lee Green to vent my spleen at the disatrous outcome of last night’s Planning Committee meeting which sealed the fate of the ailing Leegate Centre when only one Councillor, (Green Party John Coughlin) supporting the objectors and raising serious concerns about traffic congestion and air pollution, coupled with loss of trees to the site, rejected St Modwen’s planning application.

http://www.leegate-regeneration.co.uk/

The proposed development will only contain 15% social housing of which 0% is real social housing – and of the 229 properties that will be built only 12 will be “so-called affordable rents” at 65% of market rate – a mere snip Lewisham says at one thousand pounds a month for a family home! 24 properties will be shared ownership the selling/rental price on which there is radio silence – I think we all know where this is heading…. St. Modwen are literally laughing their way to the bank, I can imagine all sorts of congratulatory guffaws being made today at the expense of the battle weary community just looking at their last years FY results on their website makes me feel physically sick knowing that they have got their greedy way with the “Anchor Store” plan whilst declaring that providing more social housing and truly affordable housing wasn’t viable for them – well you have to feel sorry for the poor darlings after all they only achieved 258.4m in pre-tax profits last year with 67.4m in property profits – so understandably our supposedly social just and strong community sensed Council (core Labour values) continued to do what it always does whilst making cries of ……. “we are operating in the real world”.. it rolled over in front of their property developer master squashing the community protest in the process.

All 906 people from the Local community and the Lee Manor & Blackheath Society’s & the new Neighbourhood Forum, A Better Lee Green who all petitioned objecting to St. Modwen’s proposals are in agreement – Leegate has been left to go to rack and ruin for far too long and that everyone in the local community should benefit from it’s re-development: residents, businesses and organisations on site, residents in the local area and nearby areas who would give their patronage to a well-thought out, multi-amenity re-newed site. I am sure that there are many local people like me who feel that the ruination of the site was a deliberate tactic on behalf of the Developer to ensure that people (and the Council) would be so desperate for a “Regenerative” scheme that we would all happily accept slops to satiate our hunger for the Area’s revitalisation rather than the a la carte community re-development we wanted instead – a view echoed by Greenwich Ward councillors.

So what we have to look forward to now is extensive traffic congestion especially at Lee Green crossroads, worsening air pollution (already at nearly double the UK/EU maximum level of 40 µg/m3), loss of 60% of public space with 88 short stay cycle spaces which are somehow going to be crammed into the diminished “public realm” (which in reality is little more than the outside pavement perimeter edging); but hey we’ll have a swish escalator in the middle of a covered arcade – what more could we want? A great deal more actually: an independent cinema would have been great – people would undoubtedly use the local restaurants more, and how about some sports and leisure for families – yes families not a private gym for well-heeled executives who are the only ones who will be able to afford the 193 private homes on offer and the gym that goes with it. I had been hoping for things like Bromley centre has – a soft play area and a small bowling alley perhaps – or how about a multi purpose space which could be used as a roller-rink, a DJ space for young people and badminton, table tennis or air hockey. No – like it or lump it the Chair of this Planning Committee didn’t want to hear my objection to the ASDA design based on the law relating to children and young people who have “the right to relax, and play, and to join a wide range of activities” (Article 31 of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child – which the UK is signed up to). To the five Labour Councillors who passed this planning application last night (Notably absent were Liam Curran, Chair of the Sustainable Development Select Committee which oversees environmental impact issues such as the “reduction of all types of pollution” and fellow Labour Councillor Damien Egan, the Cabinet member for Housing), I would like to know how an ASDA store is going to meet the needs of all the young people in the community to have happy social places to go, to meet and make friends and enjoy something of their young and constantly pressured lives. My daughter (12) summed it up wonderfully when she said to me “Mum why do they want to put an ASDA there when we go to Sainsburys it’s stupid – I want to have fun.”

Andrea Carey Fuller

Blackheath Ward Co-ordinator

Lewisham Green Party

18^th May 2016