Re: Crystal Palace Park consultation event.

The LDA has put together a package that would turn our park into a unique, beautiful and vibrant place with facilities and entertainment for everyone; a new playground and animals for the young children, skateboarding, football and a new cricket pavilion for the teenagers and boating on the lake, bicycle hire, new cafes, a viewing tower and a bigger improved museum for everyone.

It is also proposed to provide new paths, fencing and signage, repair the terraces and subway and remove all tarmac from centre of park.

Apart from the obvious improvements it is hoped that with photovoltaic roofs, waste treatment and a new lake, the sustainability elements of the scheme will allow the park to make its own power, and recycle its water.

Crystal Palace Park could lead the way in the field of sustainability.

In order to lever in the necessary funding, it would be necessary to sell off some land on the periphery of the park for housing. This would be in three places;

1) the large piece of land that is, at present, a caravan site on a long lease and not accessible to the public. One third of this would be housing but two thirds of it would once again be open to the public.

2) at the Sydenham end of the park, a plot along the main road where houses had been bombed during the war. The houses there would be filling in the gap left by the bombs.

c) at the corner of the park near the town. This would be a loss of presently accessible parkland and is as such the most controversial. The suggested development would be in the form of apartments over cafes and small shops around a town piazza.

The piazza would provide a platform for a meeting place, street entertainment, markets and seasonal activities such as winter ice-skating. It is here that the LDA plans to integrate an underground car-park for the town.

Since the introduction of the one-way system, with the loss of parking along the parade, the town has lost over half of its customers and many of its independent retailers and is now losing its two large supermarkets.

This car park therefore could be pivitol to the future viability of the town.

In all, 39 acres of parkland will be made publicly accessible. Without this £100 million pound facelift what will be the future of our park and town?

How are we ever going to stop the park falling into total decline; the terraces disintegrating, the sphinxes falling to pieces and the subway collapsing?

Bromley Council is certainly not going to spend any money on it. We have been lucky that because of the Olympics, Crystal Palace has become high profile. That has prompted the LDA to put a lot of time, effort and money into consulting and procuring the business interests and partnerships to put together this viable package which will give us a state of the art National Sports Centre and will make our park something very special.

The political will is there at the moment. Maybe we should grasp it with both hands because although the LDA will have to address the Sports Centre, they do not have to take on the park.

If they don't get the public support they need, they will walk away. If they do that, it could be 50 or 100 years before we get another chance. Those who insist that housing should not be allowed no matter what could find themselves responsible not only for the decline of the park but the town as well.

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