The Canada Water West Residents Action Group was set up in June 2015 to represent households on the western edge of the Canada Water Masterplan, a vast site that British Land and Southwark Council want to redevelop around Surrey Quays shopping centre.
While the action group is broadly in favour of redevelopment, it is campaigning to ensure that the plans do not destroy the existing community’s local environment.
Local residents in Ada’s Garden
The campaign has already had a major success. We pushed back hard against attempts to build a new leisure centre on top of a local wildlife area and forced Southwark Council to change its mind and consider other options. We continue to campaign to ensure that the wildlife area, known as Ada’s Garden, remains free of any development.
But with planning permission for the first phase of redevelopment imminent, the group has agreed a set of issues on which to campaign to ensure that our community is not destroyed by the greed of developers. and their friends at the Council.
Canada Water West Residents Action Group 
Hello . I have taken a good look at the Wildlife Site today and taken some photos. While being a long standing campaigner for a much needed Aqua Centre in Rotherhithe, I find this location to be totally inappropriate. I would want to see British Lands Masterplan first before realising their reasons for putting the building there. It’s almost directly above the Tube Line and would completely destroy the open green space which separates the shopping centre from the housing.
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Thanks for your support. We really appreciate it.
Canada Water West Residents Action Group
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I hope you may have seen these documents concerning the preferred location of the Leisure Centre
http://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/mgIssueHistoryHome.aspx?IId=50007229&Opt=0
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Thanks Mark. Yes, we have. Our blog post about it is here https://canadawaterwest.org/2015/08/05/southwark-council-goes-public-on-its-plan-to-cut-down-wildlife-area/
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I have just e mailed counsellor Mark Williams to see if I can find out more. If the plans for the leisure centre disrupts our wildlife & greenspace, then I’m fully opposed. To be honest, from what I have read, it does. You have my support.
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Thanks Ann
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Rose Godfrey
Why not build the new leisure center on the existing site?
Southwark just want to build yet more high rise flats there for profit, they don’t care about the local residents or wild life.
We need our trees and wild life areas, there has been far too much of this happening, yet more concrete is overtaking Rotherhithe.
Southwark are getting away with murder (literally).
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Elena Tom – resident, Ann Moss Way. I vote for renewal of our leisure center but it should remain where it is now. The current location is perfect and I don’t want to see another block of flats right next to Ann Moss Way plus there is already money allocated for the leisure center refurbishment.. Please can someone send me a petition so that I can sign and return by post.. until we start getting votes in paper, the council won’t take our opinion seriously.
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Please have my support as an environmetalist and a strong supporter of our, very few now, green spaces and wildlife
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Hello Jonny, you have my support for sort it out this issue with the council.
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Aparently there has been no extra consultation date for the Leisure Centre so I have put my opinion to the architects. On the present site they could either leave our pool or build a 50 meter pool but they are committed to undermine swimming forcing a 25 meter pool which when the shallow end is cordoned off leaves a pool of unacceptable 18 meters.
Here is my letter to them:
Re: Problems with the leisure centre design and location.
Dear Architects and Researchers of this project:
During the consultation meeting on March 30th I was only able to put my objections to where the proposed Leisure Centre is going to be sited which is bad for the nature reserve and the cycle lane to the very centre of the Master Plan development, both must be protected so I oppose this site.
After the Architect introduced the swimming pool I was unable to put my opinion to the meeting regarding the projected main swimming pool which you insist is some kind of great achievement when in reality it is not even as good as the pool which we have already at Seven Islands. Our present main pool not only supports children learning to swim. Our present main pool was designed by more competent and informed professionals who had in mind that swimming pools are not only for children learning to swim but they are also for children and adults to be able to practice and learn a wide range of sports such as board diving, scuba diving and to prepare for real competition swimming. Even though our run down by Southwark main pool today is not an Olympic pool it is much more on its way to being one than the pathetic 25 x 17 meters proposed, which I oppose as a person who likes sports and considers that sports are an important part of keeping fit and competing.
When the lifeguards administering the new pool are put under pressure with all the new schools and with all the new pupils from this fantastic Master Plan Development and they arrive at the small and short proposed pool of 25 x 17, they will cordon off the shallow end and this will leave the other swimmers with a totally inadequate 18 meter pool during the day, as if 25 meters wasn’t inadequate enough already, it is a poor choice indeed. The original master plan Leisure Centre should be resurrected perhaps in order to give swimmers what they already had in Southwark and which you are taking away from us while at the same time trying to sell us all this development of homes, businesses and high rise buildings.
If your best swimmers, both children and adults would rather swim and train at the alternative closest pool at St. George’s in Tower Hamlets, then you would have failed to give the public subjected to your Master Plan a pool in accordance with a “Master Plan” that can also impress and invite users to the different water sports which can be practised today in our present pool. Your suggested pool and Leisure Centre are more like a bolt on afterthought to the Master Plan and don’t do it credit.
I urge you to visit the nearest alternative pool at St. George’s Pools Tower Hamlets. From their website: http://www.better.org.uk/st-georges-leisure-centre/facilities I will take its description:
St George’s Leisure Centre
St Georges Leisure Centre is situated on The Highway in the heart of Wapping. The centre has been part of the borough’s history for many years and has recently seen a refurbishment with the addition of a new studio space with separate entrance area. Also available are 2 pools, the largest of which is regularly used by local swimming clubs and was used by the Russian Federations Synchronised Swimming team, brand new diving boards and a gym which operates women only sessions. These redevelopments will help to provide residents with year round activities for all ages and abilities across the sport and health and well-being spectrum. ….
St. George’s Pool is not only the closest competition to what the Master Plans has to offer, it also has a user base which will be similar to what will follow the Master Plan Southwark implementation.
The Master Plan Competition: When a normal client goes in to St. George’s Pool they will look and see a large pool, new diving boards, banners saying Tom Daley teaches to dive here.. they will think this is the business.. and what you are proposing is not up to the standards of this old, refurbished and well loved Imperial pool. The choice of sports which are available on their own are much wider. This pool even looks like an Olympic pool with its 33 meters and 3.8 meters deep…(just like our pool)
If you question your best swimmers, both children and adults as to where they would rather swim and train, I can confirm that each of your good swimmers of any age will prefer St. George’s in Tower Hamlets to your children’s 25 x 17 little pool and if you build it you would have failed in your job to promote sports and fitness.. You would have also failed the Master Plan with all those new workers and residents who may want a decent pool to swim in beyond your pool for children learning to swim.
North of the river they haven’t run down their leisure centre as you have done in Southwark with Seven Islands. What you propose as the “Leisure Centre of the Master Plan” can’t compete with its next door neighbour from the 60’s! For a start they kept and renewed their diving boards!
The Master Plan Market: Very important to mention too is that St. George’s has a similar customer base to what one can expect when the Master Plan has been implemented as it is attended by workers from the East side of the City and by residents, many swim before going in to work, during lunch hours or after work. It all starts at 7am and finishes at 21.30. So if you want valid data for Erlang statistics to calculate the busy hour or peak period to dimension the prescribed facilities you should really use St. George’s data and not the run down Seven Islands where doors and windows are opened in winter making people sick.
ST. GEORGE’S HAS A POOL EXACTLY LIKE OURS IN SEVEN ISLANDS (but with its diving boards offering not only swimming for children and old dears but also a range of sports for good swimmers both children and adults). PLEASE GIVE US SOMETHING THE SAME AS WHAT WE HAVE OR BETTER. IF YOU MUST BUILD A NEW POOL AND YOU CAN’T BUILD ROUND OUR PRESENT ONE, THEN IT MUST BE 50 METER POOL. PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU GIVE US A SITE WITH THIS OPTION, YOUR PREFERRED BOLT ON AFTER THOUGHT LEISURE CENTRE IS NO GOOD and I oppose it for what it has inside and its location, I also oppose any change of use of the Seven Islands property which because of its approximate 45 x 85 meters could happily accommodate a 50 meter pool and all the other facilities in a two or three floor Leisure Centre covering the whole site..
Yours sincerely,
David Foot
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Please sign the e-petition to fight for a better aquatics centre and regeneration design we were promised years ago.
I have created an e-petition to address the totally inappropriate leisure centre offering and other general issues with the regeneration design.
It needs 500 signatures to be heard before decisions get made by the cabinet on July 19th.
Please help us get the signatures by signing your email and sharing the link below
http://moderngov.southwarksites.com/mgepetitionlistdisplay.aspx?bcr=1
Much appreciated
Sue Lloyd
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PLEASE SIGN OUR PETITION. We now have an approved Southwark Petition.
http://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/mgEPetitionDisplay.aspx?ID=500000028&RPID=599226752&HPID=599226752
Thank you
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