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Give us return for loss of park
• Camden is proud of its £1.5m revamp of Cantelowes
Gardens, a small park on Camden Road, next to Camden School
for Girls.
It was made possible when the Jewish Free School moved and returned
some of the land to the council.
The re-vamp begs many questions about the balance of sports
and community use. Camden has designated Cantelowes as a youth
park.
The site already had a popular skate board park but by 2000
it was breaking up and a replacement was needed. Combined with
a lack of football pitches in the borough here was an opportunity
to install a Multi Use Games Area (MUGA).
Camden went out to consultation under the tag ‘Your Park
– You Use – You Choose’.
There was a good response. Sixty two per cent supported the
sports pitch and the new skateboard park but also wanted a clubhouse
with toilets.
Sixty per cent wanted a café as a meeting place. People
also asked for better play and adventure space for children
aged up to 14 years. Teenagers wanted an afternoon school hut
with activities.
As Camden had promised, a local group was formed to produce
a design brief. As well as the ideas thrown up by the consultation
we suggested exercise trails, quiet planted sitting areas, a
community garden, a performance space and a small playground.
But the park element of the gardens has been squeezed and about
half the park is now under hard surface.
Consultation with the community ended a year ago but we learnt
in the summer that the Football Foundation, a charity set up
to revitalise grass roots sport, had agreed to fund the MUGA
and a pavilion containing changing rooms, staff office and a
clubroom.
The design was published in a newsletter in November. There
had been no consultation, there was no café and the building
was really dull, a dark grey and blue brick, apparently windowless
rectangle.
The community wants something in exchange for losing so much
of our park.
This is one of the more deprived parts of the borough with little
open space. Young people living on the Peckwater estate have
been asking for a youth club for years.
There are many single old people who have lost their community
pub to an expensive development, who would welcome a sheltered
place to sit. Parents and children too want a meeting place
overlooking the playground. A good outcome of the MUGA is that
there will be staff on site which, if combined with a café,
will make a safe friendly environment which people would really
value.
We are having an open meeting in the Kentish Town Community
Centre, 17 Busby Place, NW5 today (February 2) at 7pm to campaign
for an alternative plan of a round sustainable, highly insulated
building with a sedum roof and climbers up the walls, with windows.
And a café. Time is short as some of the funds have to
be used by the end of the financial year.
Roz Cullinan
Camden Mews
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