March 2002

WHAT DOES CARA REALLY DO ? We often don’t have space in our newsletters to tell you about everything the committee is doing. So we’ve decided to hold an open committee meeting so that anyone who is interested can come along and listen to what goes on. It will be in the Owl and Pussycat on Richmond Road (so you can have a drink and come and go as you please!) at 8 p.m. on Monday March 18th. Hope to see you there!

TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT & ENVIRONMENT IN LOWER HAM ROAD CARA are delighted to announce that we have been successful in obtaining Central Govt funding, to the tune of £50000, to spend on traffic management & environment in Lower Ham Road. This project has been driven jointly by CARA and Cllr Dennis Doe, along with some highly committed traffic engineers at the Council. Proposals have been drafted to reduce vehicle speeds and enhance safety : by the Hawker Leisure entrance (separately funded as part of the London Cycle Network), in front of Leander Scouts and Albany Sailing and at the southern end of Lower Ham Road, especially by the entrance to the Canbury Gardens playground. A formal consultation document is now being produced by the Council which will be sent to every household and business in the area.

THE GREENING OF RICHMOND ROAD
CARA invited Councillors Dennis Doe and David Cunningham to the February Committee meeting to discuss ways in which the forecourts in front of parades of shops on both sides of Richmond Road can be improved. This idea, which has been under discussion for a number of years, has been brought to life by the campaigning of the CARA committee including Sheelah Watson, who has focussed on the road traffic issues and by Bodo von Broen who contributed much to the environmental debate. The opening of the new Sainsbury store, and the uncertainty surrounding the future of the Barton shops, has enabled CARA to bring this issue back to the Council's attention.

The view expressed by many CARA members at last year's AGM is that work needs to be done on the forecourt areas to reduce the danger to pedestrians, particularly school children, from vehicles driving onto the pavement to make deliveries and to provide improvements to the environment to encourage usage of the local businesses. The CARA committee, realising that the issue is a complex one with many different issues to address, contacted the Councillors who had been active in discussions in previous years, to seek a way forward.

Councillor David Cunningham expressed concern for the entire neighbourhood after the sale of the Pharmacist's licence to Sainsburys, depriving patients from two local surgeries of the attentive service provided by Jeffra over the years. A study will now take place to understand more about the ownership of the businesses and flats in the parade, create a framework to the options available and then seek opinions from all interested parties.

CARA would welcome your views on all this. Do you have anything to say on the shops on the parade? How about the parking on the forecourt, the future of the Barton shops. CARA will keep you up to date on developments as they occur and let you now when any meetings are arranged. In the meantime, please feel free to submit your views to any CARA committee member or to Huw Rees by emailing : huw.g.rees@ntlworld.com

LET THERE BE LIGHT ! It looks as though the lighting in the plane trees in Canbury Gardens will finally be restored following an agreement at the last Royal Parks Neighbourhood Meeting. CARA and Neighbourhood Watch will each contribute £500 towards the total cost of about £1500. This option was raised at CARA’s AGM and met with general approval. The original lighting was installed for purely decorative purposes and so is subtle enough not to cause too much light pollution but it will help illuminate the path from the town through the gardens. We don’t know how robust it will be or how long it will last, but it is expected that the hotel will cast some light into the gardens once it is built, so the situation could be reviewed again then.

NO NURSERY IN CANBURY GARDENS – WHY NOT ?
Many of you will have seen the articles in the local paper regarding the proposal to start a children’s nursery in the old bowling green pavilion in Canbury Gardens. You will know that CARA strongly opposed this, and may be wondering why. Don’t we think there’s a need for nurseries? The pavilion isn’t being used for anything else – surely this would put it to some good use? That was certainly the committee’s initial reaction when we heard about the proposal; it was only as we thought more about it that we realised the implications.

For the nursery to go ahead, there had to be a formal change of use approved, so that the bowling pavilion and land were no longer designated as ‘leisure and recreation’. They would no longer be part of Canbury Gardens. Yet back in 1998, (during the poplar tree episode) the Council had made a formal commitment to maintain the current boundaries of Canbury Gardens, to keep the gardens in their entirety and not sell off or lease any part of them. Not only would allowing the change of use break this commitment, it would set a potentially dangerous precedent for any future applicants who wanted to buy or lease part of the gardens. For example, it might encourage the hotel developers to encroach into the gardens.

Canbury Gardens is officially Metropolitan Open Land which should be open to everyone and not built on. Approximately 2000 more people are due to move into this area when the 2 & 3 bedroom housing is built on the Sainsbury and Rockware Plastics site. This housing has next to no gardens and so the need for public gardens will be greater than ever.

The Development Control Committee clearly shared these views and unanimously refused the application for a change of use. Like CARA, they recognised the need for nurseries in the borough but didn’t feel it appropriate to take land or buildings away from Canbury Gardens to meet this need. They repeated the Council’s commitment to keep the boundaries of Canbury Gardens just as they are, and to keep the gardens open to everyone in Kingston. This was excellent news for safeguarding the future of Canbury Gardens. Thank you to everyone who wrote in support of this commitment.

THAMES LANDSCAPE STRATEGY
The Thames is one of the most important natural and cultural assets of London and one that we all care about. The Thames Landscape Strategy, launched in 1994, is a 100 year blueprint for the River. Full details can be found at http://www.thames-landscape-strategy.org.uk/ (or from the Links section of the Caraweb site).

STREET PARTIES
If you’re interested in holding a street party as part of the Golden Jubilee Celebrations, please make contact with Lynda Loader by email at : lynda.loader@rbk.kingston.gov.uk or by telephone on : 8547 4755.

KINGSTON IN 20 YEARS TIME
If you’d like to contribute to a Council strategy, K+20, which will develop a plan of how Kingston Town Centre should look in 20 years time, then send your thoughts to kplus20@rbk.kingston.gov.uk or write to K+20, Planning Policy, Environmental Services Directorate, Guildhall, Kingston KT1 1EU.

GRAFFITI
CARA have been very active working with the Council, the Police and Neighbourhood Watch groups to try and get graffiti removed and the vandals caught. We would ask that everyone is extra-vigilant and call the Police if you see any vandals with spray cans, jumbo markers, etc. Kingston Council now spend several hundred thousand pounds each year removing graffiti, so it is imperative that the perpetrators are dealt with as soon as possible. Some good news is that Kingston Police are now pushing for tougher punishments against graffiti vandals, to the extent that one particularly persistent offender was recently imprisoned for two years. Graffiti damage should be reported to the 24 hour graffiti hotline on 8547 4646 or logged on the graffiti section of www.kingstonlibdems.org. Everyone can help the community in the campaign against graffiti. Please contact the Council on 8547 4646 if you would be willing to provide any assistance.