Author: Cyril Richert

As usual when I attend the Clapham Junction Town Centre Partnership (business associations) meeting, I give a quick feedback on some specific points that were discussed.

Business report: The Council has currently appointed a team to overview the options towards self-sustainability. The current Town Centre partnership Board structure will remain at least for the next 2 years, until January 2017.

Lavender Hill: Cllr Guy Senior suggested funding the repaving of Lavender Hill from BAC to Lambeth (as TfL has already agreed to extend the Exemplar scheme from the Post Office to the BAC for £0.5 million) with the 15% share of the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) that has to be spent on local projects.

The current 15% “pot” for Battersea locality (about 1 mile away from CJ station) is £245k. He suggested 2 options:

1. same pavement as existing with cost ~£200k;
2. upgrade to upper quality pavement (Exemplar scheme for example) and cost ~£700k. Options b means to wait for longer as the 15%CIL depends on the amount of new constructions granted in the area.

Cllr Senior said that CJ was luckier than Tooting, which has a “pot” of only £20k as there are no many new large constructions.

Cllr Senior said that the Council has no more money and rely only on CIL funding for improvements (made a comment saying that under the current £50 million cuts, they have absolutely no additional funding available; the council’s budget is only used for repairs). However he acknowledged that there is a possibility to use some of the 85% CIL money too.

Other options to spend locally the 15% share of the CIL are: Xmas lights; gardens; LED street lights

In other words, the message from the Council is: if you want improvement in your area, you have to accept larger developments!

 Northcote Road: 12^th July 2015: Summer feast

Central Junction: Platform 17^th extension has been completed on December 20^th. Footfall in the shopping centre is 10.5 million.

Crime report: 70 crimes (-17%)

Planning: P.A. 2014/6976 for a motor-racing event in Battersea Park. BP is currently the only application made. The Park will not be available at all for the 2 days of the event (weekend). The event set-up is to begin on 15^th June 2015. The dismantling and reinstatement is to be completed by 3^rd July 2015. The option for the event is for the next 5 years. 30,000 people are expected at the event.

Filed under: Town Centre Business meeting

Author: Cyril Richert

As usual when I attend the Clapham Junction Town Centre Partnership (business associations) meeting, I give a quick feedback on some specific points that were discussed.

Town Centre Management

We reported during the last feedback that Wandsworth Council aimed at removing funding for the business organisations of each town centres in the borough by April 2015.

Since the last meeting, the Council has reviewed its possibility and confirmed they remain supportive of the Town Centre management: there is no longer any deadline to force a change.

However, they want to explore the possibilities to move to self sustainability and they have appointed a company called Central Management Solutions to provide resources to look at more sustainable models.

CMS is a specialist management company for urban centres and particularly for Business Improvement District (BID). The first phase will be a global feasibility study across the borrow to explore the different possibilities: BIDs (implemented in 187 locations it works in some places, not in others), partnership management, voluntary contribution, raising money, … etc, including staying as it is currently (each of the 5 town centres cost about £80-100k/year).

It was specifically noted that any change will be unlikely to include representatives of the local communities as they won’t provide any funding to the new organisation.

Christmas lights

Some of Clapham Junction areas will have new Christmas lights (partly paid by the business associations, partly the Council). Switch-on ceremonies will happen on the following dates:

• 26th November: Clapham Junction + Lavender Hill
• 28th November: Northcote Road
• 29th November: St John’s Hill
• 30th November: Belleville Road
• 2nd December: Battersea Square

Filed under: Town Centre Business meeting