Oystergate and the Sydenham Society reigns supreme

A few months ago I wrote about the meanness and short sightedness of Southern Rail in shutting the gate that allowed passengers to go straight onto Platform 1 of Sydenham station from Spring Hill Gardens and instead making them go all the way around and up and down a walk bridge over the platform.

Annoying for those of us unencumbered but if you are in a wheelchair, pushing a pushchair or carrying luggage Southern Rails action seriously curtails your ability to use the station.

It seems that the Sydenham Society has won again (it successfully campaigned against the reduction of London Bridge Trains when the East London Line comes in in 2010) and we now have plans for a new oystercard gate and in the mean time the gate will be open at rush hour; see the details here.

Lots of people (normally from outside London) say there is little community in London, as the Sydenham Society proves yet again, this just isn't the case. So, if you live in Sydenham, or use it's station and shops, then you could do worse than to join the society and help them campaign for a better Sydenham on the behalf of all of use who live around and about.

Oyster Cards and Southern Rail Cynicism

One of my biggest transport bug bears over the last few years has been the inability to use Oyster Card on over ground rail in South East London (you know, the bit where there’s no tube). This means that unless you have a weekly or monthly travel card season ticket you cannot use your Oyster Card to pay for your travel from say, Sydenham to London Bridge. This is a pain in the neck for people like me (as we have to remember to buy our travelcard at London Bridge tube) but devastatingly expensive for infrequent train travellers who don’t but season tickets (you know those less likely to be in the receipt of a nice City of London salary). They have to either pay an extra £2 or £3 for the journey or go out of their way to go and get a daily paper travelcard in addition to any money they may have on their Oyster Pay as You Go. To say Ken and TFL have been dragging their heels on making the over ground rail companies to sign up to oyster card is to be kind!

So finally, we are getting Oyster Card at Sydenham and with it Oyster Card barriers. I’m really pleased about the Oyster Card and frankly I can’t complain too much about the barriers, or so I thought.

But…but, go on there had to be a catch, didn’t there? Well, this is it:

For some time now the gate on Platform One at Sydenham train station has been open allowing those travelling to London to go direct to the platform without having to make a detour into station approach, walk halfway down Platform Two, up over the bridge, down again and onto Platform One. My guess had been when they had opened it that they had to comply with DDA legislation. Without this gate open there is no way for those who rely on wheelchairs to get around, to get onto the platform – so they just can’t go to London!!! Never mind the bind for those with pushchairs and luggage. It was a very simple, cost effective solution! Great common sense!!

But now, because of the barriers they are going to lock the gate again!! Can you believe it? Because of course, it would need a second barrier wouldn’t it? And no, it looks like we don’t deserve access and Oyster Cards! The Sydenham Society has proposed an alternative, the provision of a reader so that Sydenham residents can “touch in”. Southern Rail doesn’t think we can be trusted.

So there. So, I’ll just ignore the fact that this morning when I got to London Bridge that they had all the barriers open so people could walk through because there’s too many people trying to get off the platform and out of the station; like they do almost every morning. Because they’re not making much money out of us already for a pretty damn shoddy service, are they?

I’ve signed the Sydenham Society petition already; please join me!

Last year they were threatening to reduce the number of services into London Bridge when the East London Line came in because we could all go to Shoreditch instead (!!!??!) and the Sydenham Society ran a big campaign and got them to change their minds, so they do know what they’re doing and if we campaign hard enough we can get something done about this. The Sydenham Society: they’re grrrrreeeeaaaaat!!!

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!!!

Sydenham got there first...

This morning Radio 4 did a piece on a pilot scheme in Middlesbrough where anti social behaviour is be dealt with by the use of ‘talking CCTV’.

So much for Middlesbrough being first; this has already been happening at Sydenham Station, although I don’t know how frequently! One evening last summer, I came into the station to go into town where a couple of young lads were sitting on the back of a bench on the platform, with their feet on the seat. All of a sudden a voice came over the platform speaker, saying something like ; ‘Will the young men on platform one take their feet off the bench. Yes, YOU!’

The effect was immediate, they got down and the rest of us in the station just sort of smirked at them; minor piece of anti social behaviour dealt with.

But as I crossed the bridge over to the London platform I was aware that, although instantly very effective, this did not bode well. It’s also not so hard to extrapolate from John Reid’s latest plans a world where our behaviour is monitored and controlled by the state. If that’s the case, we’re not really that far from 1984, are we? The thing to remember is as well, how easy to implement state surveillance is in this country, as we have more CCTV cameras per head than any other country.

However, it is not enough just to demonize CCTV; I know from my work with the local Safer Neighbourhoods Team in Crystal Palace that a CCTV camera, well advertised and pointing at the right place can transform the quality of lives of residents on estates. And let’s not forget that it can also serve the defence of human rights and civil liberties as Liberty’s calls for an IPCC investigation of the treatment of a woman by the police in an underground car park in Sheffield illustrate.

It is, though, a very typical response from the government, in the face of antisocial behaviour, to resort to a centralised state delivered solution; and how much more centralised do you have to get than a faceless voice over a loud speaker?

If however, we want a solution to low level anti-social behaviour we need to look to ourselves.

If we don’t like the behaviour of our fellow citizens such as putting feet on seats or littering we actually have a choice. We can either leave it to the government to sort out and hence not be surprised when we find ourselves being treated like children, or we can start to set examples and take responsibility as individuals and a community for the behaviour of our young people.

I’m not suggesting any sort of vigilantism and it is for the police and the safer neighbourhood teams to deal with violent, threatening or criminal behaviour.

But many times the situation is quite benign, so, instead of tutting (or as often happens with me ‘fuming’) to ourselves because someone has dropped litter or a young person has their feet up on the seat in the train, we should say something, do something, just provide a different model of behaviour for them to follow. It may not always be successful, our request may be initially ignored but even a failed request will have a bigger impact on future behaviour than none at all.

Anyhow, in many cases with teenagers it is a lack of awareness that such behaviour is antisocial than any deliberate intent. And OK, so maybe their parents should be teaching them how to behave, but that doesn’t absolve us from our community responsibility. That is certainly not an excuse that would have entered our heads 30 or 40 years ago - or even 20, if you happened to be an adult in the village where I grew up!

If each one of us just undertook one action, provided some sort of role model just once a week, then we would surely start to make a difference. This is not a policy but grass roots action, that I am advocating and it is a slow burn not an overnight solution - obviously!

I firmly believe that people don’t drink and drive as much now, not because they think they’ll get caught by the police, but that it is no longer socially acceptable – I’m looking forward to when speeding becomes an equal taboo.

We have an opportunity as individuals to have an impact on our community and I am convinced that the world most of us would prefer to live in is one where the community regulates itself rather than leaving it to someone a bunch of private security employees to bawl at us through a loud speaker.

I just don’t want naming and shaming; I want a strong, supportive and free community.