In advance of the Redbridge Council Cabinet meeting on Monday 3rd December which is scheduled to include discussion of the Seven Kings Lorry park sale and in support of those who will gather to speak in the public part of that meeting, I ask the Cabinet to give serious consideration to the following:
1. In the course of the year that I have now been Vicar at St John's Seven Kings, many local people have expressed a desire to see a community focus return to Seven Kings and the High Road in particular. The Lifeline bid, through its mix of new health, leisure and retail services, would provide that community focus and is supported by 86% of Seven Kings residents. This bears out the anecdotal impression I have gained in my first year of ministry here. The Lifeline bid therefore has strong local support and significant benefits for the community.
2. The planning brief for the lorry park made much of the importance of community development gain for any activity on site but the Lifeline bid, through its mix of new health, leisure and retail services which support the new housing that is also included, seems to be the only one which seriously addresses this aspect of the planning brief. Cabinet should consider lessons from regeneration schemes elsewhere in the country which demonstrate that holistic, integrated solutions are needed in order to build community. In other words, simply building new homes without development of the local and community infrastructure fails to create community. The Lifeline bid should be supported because it meets this aspect of the planning brief which will also vital in the long-term success of any initiative involving housing on the site.
3. Lifeline have offered a strong cash bid in addition to the obvious community gains outlined above. Their £13.2m package (initial cash offering of £4m, buildings to be given to the Council adding another £3.7m and additional community facilities costed at £5.5m) would bring a mixed use development to the area. including creating full and part time jobs. In terms of both net economic benefit and added value, the Lifeline bid must therefore exceed any housing-only bids; including that of Swan Housing, which appears to offer only an additional six housing units to those in the Lifeline bid while only netting the Council £7.7m.
I have worked previously with Lifeline on inter-faith and training initiatives in Barking and Dagenham and can commend their effectiveness in delivery and in community engagement. I, therefore, have no hesitation in commending their bid to the Cabinet for the reasons outlined above.
On Friday, at the Community Cohesion conference held at the Town Hall, the Leader of the Council stated that community cohesion is good in Redbridge because the different groups in the borough listen to each other. However, in Seven Kings local people do not feel that they are being heard; little of the Seven Kings Action Plan has yet been implemented, residents have consistently have a long-running preference for a new library to replace the old 'sold off' library at the other end of the High Road; and 86% of residents consulted expressed a preference for the community facilities included in the Lifeline bid. Because decisions on the bids for the Lorry Park sale have been referred back to Cabinet, you now have an opportunity to make the Leader's words reality and show that Redbridge really is a listening local authority by listening to and acting on the preference expressed by Seven Kings residents for community facilities to feature strongly in a multi-use package on the Lorry Park site.
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Bob Marley & The Wailers - Concrete Jungle.
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