Canada Water West Residents Action Group

What is it?

A hybrid application which is in outline for most of the huge 45-acre site of Surrey Quays Shopping Centre and car park and the Surrey Quays Leisure Park behind it but detailed for three sites:

• A1 is the 33-storey residential tower and office buildings planned for the Overflow Car Park in front of the Dock Office
• A2 is the Leisure Centre and Office block planned for the Tesco filling station
• K1 is the social housing block on Robert’s Close next to Russia Dock Woodland.

These sites will be the first to be built if permission is given. The rest will come forward for future planning applications BUT the massing and location of these plots will be fixed. So if you don’t like the size or location of a building which is only in outline now, you have to speak out now.

Where do I find it?

Online until 20th July here

Note that there is a 5000 character limit if you respond online. You can therefore also email the planning officer: michael.glasgow@southwark.gov.uk or write to him at the Council offices.

It is likely that he will not write his report till after the summer and has given assurances that he will take account submissions made after 20th July. We recommend doing this by the end of August at the latest.

If you want more information on how to makes sense of the planning documents, see this excellent advice: https://www.southwarkcan.org/canada_water_masterplan

What can I object to?

The planning officer will only take into account Material Planning Considerations. Here is a briefing on what these are. If you think you, the community, the environment or our infrastructure will be harmed in any way, say so and focus on the outcome of the plans on these areas. In other words, list the harm and then the effect of it.

As a community, we have workshopped some responses to the plan which you will have received if you are on our mailing list. Contact canadawaterwest@gmail.com to join our list and receive a copy.

After over a year of campaigning, we were delighted to hear today from Mark Williams, Cabinet Member for New Homes and Regeneration, that he has changed his mind about the Council’s ‘preferred’ site for a new leisure centre for Canada Water. Last August Mr Williams decided without consultation that the new building should be located on the wildlife area behind homes in Hothfield Place, Hithe Grove and China Hall Mews. Canada Water West was formed to oppose the plans to move the Seven Islands Leisure Centre and destroy the trees and wildlife on the site that is now known as Ada’s Garden.

After a battle to ensure that a fair consultation took place, residents were consulted during a series of events this spring and summer. The first inkling we had that our campaigning was paying off was during a meeting on 28th June when Mr Williams said he would consider other sites. Today we heard that he has listened to the community and the 60% of people who opposed the plans and has taken Ada’s Garden off the table as an option.

We are thankful to everyone who has turned up at events to support us, who has written to express support and who let their voice be heard during consultation. It is heartening to know that community action can pay off.

Of course our campaign doesn’t end here. We will continue to campaign to ensure that NO development threatens Ada’s Garden. And just as importantly, we need to ensure that all our members and supporters in Lower Road, Ann Moss Way and Gomm Road are properly consulted about the existing leisure centre site. Many support keeping the leisure facilities where they are and hope that as new plans emerge for the Canada Water Masterplan, lesson are learnt about engaging the community from the outset.

Click here for the full text of the email from Cllr Williams

In response to a freedom of information act request, Southwark Council has released a document drawn up as recently as November 2013 that examined its options for renewing or replacing the Seven Islands leisure centre.

The research, carried out by AFLS+P Architects, looked at three sites for a new leisure centre (see excerpt below). Not one of them was the wildlife area site on the edge of the Surrey Quays shopping centre site that it now wants to chop down.

The document revealed that the council had identified three potential sites that could accommodate a new leisure centre at Canada Water.

The first was the site of the current Seven Islands leisure centre on Lower Road. The second (site 2 on the picture above) was opposite the Canada Water bus station and library on the shopping centre’s overflow car park. The third was part of Harmsworth Quay.

Nowhere in the document did the council or its architect advisers discuss the wildlife area site that has suddenly emerged as the council’s favourite location for a new leisure centre!

But just a year and a half after this detailed research was published, the council has decided to ignore the three sites it examined at length and push to locate the leisure centre on this wildlife area instead, which would involve cutting down dozens of trees and damaging an established ecosystem of plants and animals.

To us, it appears that this u-turn has clearly come about because Southwark Council now wants to use the Canada Water regeneration as a cash cow – no matter what the impact on the scheme’s neighbours, who face having a huge building erected claustrophically close to their back doors.

At a meeting of the Southwark Council oversight and scrutiny committee last week, the Canada Water West Residents Action Group did not receive a satisfactory answer as to why the council was now pursuing this controversial site.

Even worse, at the meeting Southwark Council refused to accept a recommendation made by its own oversight and scrutiny committee when it analysed the leisure centre issue last month.

The committee had called on Councillor Mark Williams, the cabinet member for regeneration and new homes, to give a public commitment that he would review his preference for the wildlife area site if the controversial plan received overwhelming public opposition in a forthcoming consultation.

Yet Cllr Williams insisted that he should not be bound by such an undertaking, claiming that it could disadvantage the council in commercial negotiations with British Land, the developer that is responsible for the lion’s share of the Canada Water regeneration.

The Canada Water Residents Action Group will, however, continue to fight this shortsighted plan, believing that the council needs to think less about commercial considerations and more about local residents.

After all, the council’s own research has shown that the wildlife area site is not the first choice, second choice or even third choice for a vital new facility for the community.

You can read the research that was unearthed by the freedom of information act request here.

Southwark News also ran a short piece on the latest oversight and scrutiny committee meeting here.

At October’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting, Cllr Mark Williams and his team will again be justifying his decision to build a new leisure centre on top of the Surrey Quays Wildlife Area. He has spent a month reflecting on his decision and doing the work that was missing in his previous report i.e. naming alternative sites and discussing their merits.

We have been promised a full presentation tomorrow (20th October) which will include architectural sketches of the new leisure centre and more information on the facilities themselves.

Make sure you’re there to hear it first hand. Just go to the reception at the Council’s offices (160 Tooley St) and ask for the Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

We still have lots of questions which we hope get answered tomorrow and whatever happens, we will fight on to prevent the destruction of trees and the relocation of the leisure centre.

We have had some good news: the “calling in” of Southwark Council’s attempt to name the wildlife area by the Surrey Quays Tesco as its preferred site for a new leisure centre to replace Seven Islands.

This is a significant opportunity. We now need to redouble our efforts to get Seven Islands refurbished instead and save the wildlife area.

What does “calling in” mean?

Up until now, one councillor, Mark Williams, was set to decide on a preferred site, without consulting local residents or others in the borough first (or name what alternatives have been considered, if any). Continue reading →