Neighbourhood Enhancement Programme Consultation Report Oval
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Neighbourhood Enhancement Programme Consultation Report Oval November 2013 Contents Background to the Neighbourhood Enhancement Programme .................................. 3 Oval NEP area ........................................................................................................... 3 Community engagement plan .................................................................................... 4 Postcard and outreach campaign ......................................................................... 4 Postcard response ..................................................................................................... 7 Co-design workshops ............................................................................................. 9 Public consultation ................................................................................................ 10 Questionnaire response ........................................................................................... 10 Albert Square consultation .................................................................................... 21 Albert Square Consultation Response .................................................................. 21 Viva Vauxhall Bonnington Square Piazza Consultation ........................................ 22 De-clutter and 20mph limit ....................................................................................... 23 Parallel initiatives ..................................................................................................... 24 Conclusion and decisions ......................................................................................... 24 The final decision ..................................................................................................... 24 Next steps ................................................................................................................ 25 Contact us ................................................................................................................ 25 Appendix A: Map of Oval NEP area ......................................................................... 26 Appendix B: Postcard ............................................................................................... 27 Appendix C - Consultation document ................................................................... 28 Photo: NEP launch event on Millbrook Road Report author: Genstacia Bull 2 | P a g e Background to the Neighbourhood Enhancement Programme The Neighbourhood Enhancement Programme (NEP) is Lambeth’s biggest ever investment in streets and neighbourhoods and, as a cooperative council, we have asked residents to tell us how we can improve streets to make them better places to live. We are committed to providing and maintaining roads, pavements and public spaces which are safe, clean and attractive and, with your ideas, we can make them even better! Community engagement for the Brixton and Stockwell NEP areas was completed in 2012 and the agreed improvements are being delivered there. Community engagement for six further areas –Clapham Town, Coldharbour, Larkhall, Ferndale, Oval and Vassall – has been taking place during 2013. This report describes the community engagement that has taken place in Clapham Town and the schemes which have been developed with the community and explains how the NEP budget will be allocated. One of the main factors in choosing these areas were concerns over road safety and injury statistics. Oval NEP area The Oval NEP area is bounded by Kennington Lane in the north; Clapham Road- Kennington Park Road in the east; and South Lambeth Road in the west. The area in the north-west between South Lambeth Road and Wandsworth Road north of Miles Street is also included, as is the part of the Stockwell Gardens estate which lies to the east of Stockwell Road. The streets south of Dorset Road lie within Stockwell ward. Clapham Road-Kennington Park Road, South Lambeth Road, Kennington Lane, Harleyford Road-Kennington Oval are part of the Transport for London Road Network (TLRN) which is designed for large volumes of commuter traffic; Transport for London (TfL) is the highway authority. There is a 20mph zone over the majority of the Oval NEP area – as far north as Fentiman Road and Kennington Oval and extending southwards to Stockwell tube including Stockwell Gardens Estate. All of Oval NEP is within the Kennington ‘K’ controlled parking zone (CPZ), with restrictions in place Monday to Friday between 8:30am and 6:30pm. The area opposite Oval tube (Clapham Road/Harleyford Street) has the highest number of accidents in the whole of the borough, and likewise further north up the A23 the junction with Kennington Road has a very high proportion of incidents. However, the highway authority for these accident hotspots is TfL. Excluding TLRN there have been serious incidents on Palfrey Place and Lawn Lane, with accidents of a less serious nature occurring most frequently on Dorset Road, Fentiman Road and Vauxhall Street. 3 | P a g e Again apart from the TLRN, Fentiman Road has the highest volume of traffic, with Aldebert Terrace and Dorset Road also carrying larger numbers of vehicles. According to speed surveys the only slight concern is on Claylands Road where the average speed1 is just over 25mph, the only place over 25mph in Oval NEP. Community engagement plan We engaged with residents through three phases: • A postcard and outreach campaign, seeking to establish the priority concerns of the community. • A co-design workshop phase, where we worked with residents to convert concerns into practical solutions. • A public consultation phase in which we asked all residents to prioritise a list of possible improvements emerging from the co-design phase. Ward councillors have been involved throughout the process. Postcard and outreach campaign Photo: The postcard mailout kicked off at the NEP launch event in Millbrook Road 1 These averages do not take into account the fastest 15 per cent of vehicles (which would otherwise skew the figures) 4 | P a g e A postcard (attached as Appendix B) and poster were developed, using the strapline ‘wish you were here?’ The postcard invited residents to consider what they liked and did not like about the street they live on and the streets they regularly use to get to work, school or the shops, and how we should go about improving them. Residents were also able to respond via a short online survey which replicated the questions on the postcard. Residents could also send us an email or phone and leave a message on our NEP comments line. The postcard was distributed to all 7,172 households within the Oval NEP area in April 2013. Posters and postcards were displayed in council offices, libraries, advice centres, GP surgeries, children’s centres and jobcentre plus/employment centres and street notices were fixed to lampposts across the Oval NEP area during April and May 2013. The postcard was also available on request in key community languages and alternative formats for visually impaired residents. We wrote to residents’ associations and community groups, providing them with information for their newsletters, websites and blogs. As part of being a cooperative council we encouraged these groups to actively take part and take ownership for generating and delivering their own on-street publicity for the NEP: 17 groups agreed to distribute over 1,000 postcards to their residents and users. Tradescant Area Residents Association (TARA), volunteered to run a pilot, which involved local residents sending in photographs to illustrate things they liked or did not like about their streets. These photos were captioned and displayed on the walls of a community hall. The exhibition was publicised through a leaflet which TARA produced, paid for by the council. Local residents were invited to write their comments on post-it notes and stick these on the photos showing things people did and did not like. 32 residents participated in some way, either by sending in photos or attending the exhibition or both. Albert Square and St. Stephen's Association (ASSA) decided to conduct an online survey of residents in their streets to obtain their feedback. They compiled a detailed report summarising the views of the 43 residents who completed the survey. We contacted Lambeth Living resident participation officers to help us engage residents living on local estates. Where a tenants and residents association existed we contacted them directly asking them to distribute postcards and requesting to attend their meetings. To ensure we got the views of young people, we also contacted each of the schools, colleges, youth and sports clubs in the area, and invited primary schools to participate in ‘walk to school’ projects. We worked with language interpreters from Stockwell Partnership to identify opportunities to engage with residents whose first language is not English through interviewing them in their own language and noting their comments. 5 | P a g e We analysed all of the concerns and suggestions we received. We developed a contact database of residents who wished to be kept informed of the progress of the programme. We received 250 written replies from Oval NEP residents, 100 of which were completed face-to-face with residents whose first language is not English as follows: Portuguese (54); Spanish (7); Somali (12); Arabic (5); Tigrinian (6); Amharic (8) and Polish (8). 6 | P a g e Postcard response Q1. What do you like about your street? What do you like about your street? Green