Residents of the Silwood Estate, Rotherhithe, were promised that when the estate was “regenerated” their existing and community managed community centre and other facilities would be replaced with a better purpose community centre- later called the Lewington Centre.
London and Quadrant received grant of £3,334,653.00 of Section 106 money, of which £1,964,728 was to build the community centre- it also included £2,240,000 SRB money to build new flats above the main hall that would provide the community with a constant rent revenue stream of £32,500 p.a. that was to go towards community capacity building.
However since it opened in April 2009 local residents have struggled to get access. The rents are too high for the Tenants and Residents groups to use it for office space. The hall is either inappropriate or unaffordable for most community uses.
Now the “owners” London and Quadrant, without any meaningful consultation with residents, have let out the centre to Bede Educational College and the residents are almost complete excluded. There appears to be no L&Q staff based there.
In order to find out what is going on it has been necessary to make a Freedom of Information request to Lewisham Council see below.
Lewisham Borough Council have now responded, late, to our freedom of information request. Here are details of the original request and their reply:
From: Mark Saunders
2 October 2012
Dear Lewisham Borough Council,
Re Lewington Centre 9 Eugenia Road
Rotherhithe London SE16 2RU
Regarding the Lewington Centre and the flats above please can you
provide the following information and documents:
Documents relating to Section 106 agreements with L&Q
Documents relating to L&Q’s commitments to funding and services
provided for the community centre
Details of any funding from Lewisham council to the centre and the
terms and conditions of this funding.
L&Qs financial reports and business plans for the use of the
Lewington Centre since it was opened.
Yours faithfully,
Mark Saunders
c/o
Spectacle
Studio 25
99-109 Lavender Hill
London
SW11 5QL
From: Foi
Lewisham Borough Council
7 November 2012
Silwood Update Report September 2009.pdf
423K Download View as HTML
grant agreement community fac silwood 3b.pdf
682K Download View as HTML
grant agreement phase3b.pdf
744K Download View as HTML
community fac 3b silwood estate.pdf
2.1M Download View as HTML
Lewington centre Buiness plan Update 300909.xls
37K Download View as HTML
Dear Mr Saunders
Re: Freedom of Information Act 2000
Reference No: 197880
Thank you for your recent request. We apologise for the delay responding.
We enclose the following information.
Regarding the Lewington Centre and the flats above please can you provide
the following information and documents:
Documents relating to Section 106 agreements with L&Q
Section 106 Agreements once signed are public documents and can be viewed
either at the Council offices or via the Council’s website.
Below is a link to the Section 106 Agreement we believe you are interested
in. That agreement relates to Silwood Phase I and was signed on the 23
October 2001.
[1]http://acolnet.lewisham.gov.uk/ACOLLATED…
Documents relating to L&Q’s commitments to funding and services provided
for the community centre
Please see attached report.
Details of any funding from Lewisham council to the centre and the terms
and conditions of this funding.
Please see attached.
L&Qs financial reports and business plans for the use of the Lewington
Centre since it was opened.
Please see attached report.
We hope you find this information helpful.
You have a right of appeal against this response. If you wish to appeal
you must do so in writing to the Corporate Information Manager at the
following address:
Corporate Information Team
London Borough of Lewisham
1^st Flr, Town Hall Chambers,
London, SE6 4RY
or
[2][email address]
Yours sincerely
Maria Kaminski
Corporate Information Team
Tel: 020 8314 6848
We have put some of the issues these documents raise to Richard Southall Assistant Director, South East Neighbourhood of London and Quadrant see the following blogs.
Click Silwood Video Group for more blogs
Or visit PlanA our general blog on urbanism, planning and architecture.
See our Silwood Video Group project pages for more information and videos.
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