Crystal Palace Park: the masterplan

I went to a very interesting meeting at the Penge Forum on the LDA masterplan for Crystal Palace Park last night.

The plans for the park look really exciting – I’m particularly interested in the ‘rooms’ and tree planting at the top space (where the park is all scrubby and horrible now), the removal of the massive car park which is just a honey pot for car thieves and vandals at the moment but most of all by the Energy Towers, the glasshouses which might have a café in them and the tree top walk around my end of the park. I am intrigued by the idea of removing the fencing from the park and having it open, a la Blackheath, but only if it is adequately policed. I’m a little disappointed about the vagueness of the plans for the sports centre; the only mention of the Olympics that was made that there would be more money available afterwards and nothing about the potential for the site to be used as a training ground.

If we can get all this funded, it will be so exciting. It will make the park a local, regional and national resource. Such things as the energy towers and the tree top walkway would bring in international tourists – it could become a stop of the London mini-break trail and that would help not just the CP triangle but the economies and high streets of Penge, Anerley and Sydenham as well.

Of course, there is a possible price to pay in that a potential funding stream of £12m will mean that 1 acre of land where the current caravan club is (currently taking up about 4 acres) will have flats built on it and another three blocks of flats will be built on the site of the St John’s Ambulance building and the Rangers big ugly shed on Crystal Palace Park Road. My concern is that some of this land is technically Metropolitan Open Land and then the whole ‘thin end of the wedge’ turns into a slippery slope and before we know it there’ll be no park land at all. If I am honest, the land they are looking to build on is not parkland at the moment, is not really providing good value to Londoners and local people – I just wish it wasn’t MOL.

Frankly I won’t be sorry to see the Caravan site go – far from being any sort of resource for local people it has always seemed to me to be filled with tourists from outside of London getting straight on the No3 bus and heading into town. I’m not sure they spend any money in the CP triangle and certainly not in Sydenham or Penge!

If we can fund the improvements without building the flats then so be it, but only today, there has been discussion on the radio about the affordability of housing and the desperate shortage which is most acutely felt in London. I think, frankly, that more housing would be a better resource for London than a caravan park. I suspect the conclusion that I am coming to is that the land under question should not really be designated as MOL.

But what frustrated and irritated me most was the internecine warfare and arguments between the various groups claiming to represent various residents and interests, who took up half the audience and the vast majority of questions. Most of which were not questions but rants that they’d already given in a meeting the previous Friday and seemed to be concentrating on arguments that went on around who really defeated the multiplex and with how little money i.e. the past!!!! So, I only got time to ask a question on security measures if the park was opened up (as I chair the Crystal Palace Safer Neighbourhoods Residents Panel, it was my priority) and no time for a question about how we could contribute as a training ground for the Olympics.

Crystal Palace Park has been waiting for redevelopment for 80 years, let’s look to the future and please, please let’s get on with it!!!

More working from home, please!

Gary, the Sports Presenter from the Today Programme, couldn't make it through the snow this morning and did his sports bit from his own house! This is good, because it shows that even the Today Programme presenters can 'work from home'!! Hooray!

Why aren't we doing more of this? Why do we all insist on piling into trains, getting into cars and criss crossing the country making ourselves tired and ruining the planet?

It drives me crazy that we don't take advantage of how technology is able to free us and instead just let it enslave us - after all in the UK we work the longest hours and are the least productive country in Europe - or at least we used to be, I don't know how EU enlargement has impacted that.

Of course, the problem here is 'Bosses' because a culture that allows working from home can only come from the top - if your boss doesn't approve, well, you just don't work from home, do you?

And yet, I find it completely illogical that more Bosses don't see the benefits to their teams and therefore themselves of regular 'working from home' - it's almost as if, because they had to sacrifice a home life in order to spend 3 hours a day commuting to and from an office they think that's the only way to succeed. Or, maybe they just want the rest of us to suffer like they do....

In fact, in a number of organisations that I've wroked with, it's only the top Bosses that are allowed to work from home - it's almost as if it's seen as a reward for having practically worked yourself into an early grave..you have to nearly ruin yourself and your family first; what a waste!

There are obviously times when a team needs to get together and work together but I know lots of organisations that , due to historical mergers, operate over multiple sites, hundreds of miles from each other. There are also obviously jobs that can't be done remotely! But these are often the exception. Blimey, if Gary from the Today Programme can work from home, many of the rest of us probably can!

So, they know the technology supports remote working; the economics supports remote working; society supports remote working - for goodness sake in the UK we spend less time with our kids than any other country in Europe, yet lock more of them up when they commit crimes - just think what a difference having an adult around after school could make to so many teenagers!

Many organisations have looked at home working as a way on cutting down the number of desks and space needed; they've sold it in to their senior management as a cost saving idea and consequently, it has failed because that's not what it's really about. (Note: ID Card people - if you're not honest about the real benefits of a course of action, it is very likely to fail)

I think home working, working from home, remote working, whatever you want to call it, needs to be sold in to organisations on the basis of their Corporate Social Responsibility - to flexible working, to being a good employer, to being more productive, to lessening the carbon foot print of the organisation, to having, basically, a slightly less frazzled work force!

Just think, if just half of us, could spend one day out of five working on a PC or a laptop from home, instead of traipsing into the office what that could do for reduction in CO2 emissions, traffic, accidents and our ability to organise delivery and repair people - just that last bit would reduce massive stress in so many people!

Thanks, Gary from the Today Programme!!

Trying to be good

I am trying to be good, honest.

Although I am busy walking when I would have driven and even bought a bike this summer, I do still need a car and my lease on my little buzz box is up in a few months and I will need to replace it.

So, in order to put my money where my mouth is, I have decided that my next car will be the dull, dull but relatively clean Toyota Prius. If you are not fussed by cars then you'll not understand it, but I love cars. I love especially fast, sporty cars. Yes, if you're a man and you're driving a Porsche (preferably Carrera) then I may well find you more attractive than if you're not driving one. I wait with impatience for the day they bring out the environmentally friendly Mercedes SLK, as that's what I'd like to be going to order if it wasn't so smelly. A metallic oyster beige one, with cream leather seats, just in case you are wondering - not that I've thought about it much!!

Anyway, until they bring out the SLKe for environmental, I am doing what everybody who can afford it should be and reducing the CO2 emissions of those journeys that I will still make by car.

If Toyota are prepared to sell me a one, that is.

I booked via the internet a test drive for this morning. Turned up on time, introduced myself so that they would know that I was there and sat down. After a 20 minute wait I went up and reminded them I'd made an appointment and had been waiting 20 minutes. In fact, I had to say this twice to get the young man (oh goodness, I must be getting old) to actually apologise for asking me to wait for the only man of the four in the showroom who seemed to be able to sell a customer a car.

After 30 minutes, the man who was meant to be showing me the car and taking me for a test drive finally made his way up to me; I asked him if he had been expecting me (which he had been) and then thanked him for wasting an hour of my time (if you include time to get to the showroom) and told him how I was now going to buy my Toyota from someone else!

Very satisfying!

Anyway, my flounce seemed to have done the trick as the boss man from Bromley Toyota has been leaving apologetic messages on my phone.

This has been a useful learning experience for me; I think if I had done the same with the men in my life (especially the Porsche driving ones) then I may have got them leaving apologetic messages on my phone as well and who knows where I'd be now!

p.s. I love fast, sporty cars....I hate, hate, hate SUVs!!

I'm back!

Not that I've been away all that much, a quick trip to the Isle of Wight to spend Christmas Day with my Mum and John (step-dad).

I have for many years now wondered why, despite being probably the easiest person in the world to buy presents for, as a cooking, reading, perfume wearing, chocolate eating female that Santa has been concentrating, in a very sensible and methodical manner, on building up my Wedgwood dinner service. Not that I really mind, as I love my Wedgwood dinner service and its original existence on my wedding list is actually the most forceful reminder to me that I was once actually married. But I've often wondered why Santa never saw fit to bring me say, a boxed set of The West Wing DVD,as just one example.

I am, after all possibly one of the easiest people in the world to buy presents for!

But it now seems a breakthrough has been made, Santa has noted that I am in fact a Lib Dem! Because what did Santa put in my stocking this year(amongst other things to be fair to the old man)? A low voltage, environmentally friendly light bulb!!!

Because of course, that is what you buy a woman who is easily the easiest person in the world to buy presents for, isn't it? A light bulb!

Am I sounding ungrateful? I'm not, honest...because they're not cheap and it is already in use as the light bulb in my study went this morning; I'm in the process, as is Ming I understand, of replacing horrid high voltage greedy light bulbs with the environmentally friendly ones as they run out.

I am cheered to be honest, because the message that we are the most environmentally aware of the main stream political parties is getting out there and even Santa know its true!

(Before anybody gets too cross with me, I did get some other really lovely presents from Santa, for which I'm really grateful but found a light bulb just one of the more surreal ones!)