COMMUNITY &
LEISURE FACILITIES
TOPIC PAPER: DISCUSSION DOCUMENT
INTRODUCTION
This paper represents the results
of three meetings of the Topic Paper working group held between
July and October 2001 as well as widespread discussions between
many of the voluntary sector groups involved in the area
immediately surrounding the proposed Canada Water development. It
is also endorsed by the Bermondsey and Rotherhithe Development
Partnership.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES
Whilst the main focus of the
Canada Water development, and any potential new facilities that
may be built, undoubtedly centre on the area around Canada Water
itself, we believe it is absolutely vital that they should link
into a broad vision for the area as a whole.
Within the area there should
be a network of community and leisure facilities that
comprehensively meets the social, educational and
recreational needs of the current and future population.
Community and Leisure
facilities include projects and activities as well as
building-based facilities.
These facilities should be
fully accessible to all sectors of the local community in
every respect. Accessibility relates not only to physical
access but also to the ability of people of all income
levels to make use of the facilities. It also requires
the provision of adequate human resources within the
local voluntary sector and other agencies to provide
information and, in many cases, support to residents to
access the facilities.
Any new building / facilities
should support and, where necessary, provide an
infrastructure that enables co-operative working between
all facilities and groups. This means that attention must
be given to the provision of staffing as well as
buildings.
The opportunity presented by
the Canada Water development should be used to ensure
that known and emerging needs and gaps within community
provision are met, and that maximum linkage (both
physical and organisational) with existing facilities and
resources is made (e.g. with the opportunities presented
by the current improvement programme in Southwark Park,
and between Seven Islands Centre, the Watersports Centre
and the rest of the peninsula)
STRATEGY & RECOMMMENDATIONS
We believe that the community
will be best served by an appropriate balance of
provision, with some facilities provided at the centre of
the development working in conjunction with other more
locally-based neighbourhood resources in other parts of
the designated area.
We believe that community
resources and facilities located at the centre of the
development should be available to community and
voluntary groups free of charge or at minimal cost.
These facilities and
resources should be those that are most usefully provided
in a central location. They should certainly include new
library provision. They could also include shared office,
meeting and performance spaces and projects that benefit
most, and would be of most use to the community, if
centrally located – e.g. advice and information
provision. They could also include specialised projects
where location is not the critical factor.
STRATEGY & RECOMMMENDATIONS
(Continued)
As stated above, the critical
importance of localised neighbourhood services within and
around the perimeter of the development area must be re-inforced
by any central facilities and services provided. These
services, such as those provided by agencies like Bede
House, Time & Talents Association, the Surrey Docks
Farm, the Pumphouse Educational Museum, the Downtown
Community Development Project, the Bubble
Theatre, the Rotherhithe YHA and others, are vital to
creating a sense of community and enabling community
resources to be fully utilized. They will also be vital
to the successful management of any new facilities, as
well as existing buildings and resources. The Canada
Water development should take the opportunity to develop
and support a long-term strategy to resource these
services in both cash and kind.
As an overriding priority
the Canada Water development should therefore allow for
capital expenditure on the existing infrastructure of
community buildings and plant (much of which is in urgent
need of repair and improvement) as well as on new central
facilities. It should also ensure that long-term security
of tenure is available to community buildings and the
organisations that run them. The following
organisations – in alphabetical order - are
particularly in need of support in these respects: Bede
House Association, Brunel’s Engine House Museum,
London Bubble Theatre, Lavender Pond Pumphouse Educatonal
Museum, Surrey Docks Farm, Tideway Sailability, the Time
& Talents Association and the Waterfront Workshops.
Other potential projects and sites include Docklands
Settlement and St. Mary’s Church.
The Canada Water
development should also ensure that adequate provision is
made for the human infrastructure necessary to manage and
support both central and neighbourhood-centred facilities
by setting up a community trust. Aside from creating
sustainable resources for the management of the above
sites, there is urgent need for the provision of youth
and community workers and culturally specific projects.
Ring-fenced budgets for
both infrastructural support and central facilities
should be identified and publicised at the very beginning
of the development process.
CENTRAL FACILITIES
As stated above, we recognise that
mainstream community facilities should be provided at the heart
of the new development. We see this as an exciting opportunity to
site community resources side by side other services that
residents frequently use, such as Post Office, re-located central
Library etc., with meeting spaces, performance and conference
facilities, advice and information, and other social,
recreational and educational opportunities. Creatively designed,
sensitively managed and run in conjunction with existing
thriving, but under-resourced, neighbourhood centres within the
area, this could be a model for creating a built environment
designed to promote social inclusion and overcome the
fragmentation that characterises the area at present. We cannot
emphasise too strongly, however, that both the provision of new
and the re-inforcement of old facilities must go hand in hand.
NEXT STEPS
This topic paper will be
presented to the Canada Water Consultative Forum on 19/11/2001.
A mapping exercise will be
conducted to identify both existing facilities and gaps
in community and leisure provision to inform future
revisions of the topic paper.
Criteria for prioritising the
capital and revenue needs relating to the key
recommendations above need to be developed in
consultation with all relevant stakeholders.
Ian Owers Tel: 020 7231 7845 E:
ianowers@timeandtalents.org.uk Convenor, Bermondsey &
Rotherhithe Development Partnership & Director, Time &
Talents Association
November 1st 2001