A small number of the Friends Group were invited to a presentation by City of London (see the presentation here) on their proposals for the nursery site in West Ham Park which took place on Monday evening (June 13th). In summary, the City of London told us the following –
They made an in principle decision in February 2021 to sell half of the existing nursery site for residential development, with the other half being retained as part of West Ham Park. The City of London expects to make a final decision on their preferred development partner next month.
We made it clear to the City of London that the Friends of West Ham Park are totally opposed to this proposal and that all of the nursery site should be retained as part of the park and open to public use.
They told us this decision was not being consulted over, but during the July to September period this year they wanted to hold public consultation events for the design and features of the nursery site being retained in the park for public use, along with the overall long term future design and facilities of the park. This they are calling the Park’s “Masterplan”.
During the autumn of this year, the City of London’s development partner would hold a public consultation on the layout and design of the new housing.
They say that they want these consultations to include as many people and organisations as possible with the community the park serves, and that these consultations would take lots of different formats.
They say that the results of the consultations will then be assessed and included in the designs of both the proposed housing development and the park’s layout and facilities. Once the designs are complete there would be further public consultations on these final designs in Spring 2023. After this a planning application would be made to Newham Borough Council for the housing development.
The Friends Group is considering all this new information in detail, before deciding on its approach and actions.
We will keep you advised of developments, proposed meetings and other activities.
We would welcome your thoughts on the above, and our ‘next steps’. We would particularly welcome input from those with previous campaign, marketing, or media experience.