Plans to build houses on Crystal Palace Park

[marianne]

Did anyone see the article in Wednesday's Evening Standard Property News last night about the London Development Agency plans to sell off parts of Crystal Palace Park for housing? Apparently LDA meetings are held behind closed doors and the Crystal Palace Community Association have backed out of talks as a result. This cannot be allowed to happen! Why is there nothing about it on this website?

[admin]

Why is there nothing about it on this website?

Cos I didn't know anything about it! The website is dependent on good people like you to alert us to matters of community interest. Thanks for the post.

Coincidentally I received a letter from the LDA this morning announcing their second exhibition to present and gain feedback on their latest proposals. This should give us all an excellent opportunity to establish fact:

Thurs-Tues 20-25 October near Cafe, Penge Thicket Road entrance
Thurs-Tues 27-1 Oct/November Ornamental Gardens, Norwood Triangle entrance

Intrigued by your post I also asked the LDA for a response to the ES article. This is what the LDA sent to us:

Mira Bar-Hillel’s article ("Ken's monster mess", 5 October) misrepresents the LDA’s position. Firstly, The LDA doesn’t actually own the park, so to begin with we obviously can’t sell any of it off. Secondly, there are not ‘plans’ for housing on Crystal Palace Park, merely a range of options for consultation, some of which include some limited housing around the edge of the park which would fund some additional park facilities for the public. The options will be unveiled at a series of consultation events from 20th October.

As we made clear to Mira, but the article fails to point out, we have pledged that whichever options are taken forward, there will be more green parkland in Crystal Palace Park after the rejuvenation process than there is at the moment. In response to a big local campaign, the LDA's intervention saved the Crystal Palace Sports Centre from closing and we are planning a huge investment to make the Park a much better place.

The LDA’s involvement in securing a better future for the Crystal Palace Park and the approach we have taken has been warmly welcomed by the overwhelming majority of local groups.

Yours sincerely
Tony Winterbottom
Executive Director of Regeneration and Development

HTH