Residents' fears over Cocks Crescent, New Malden, plans
2:53pm Thursday 15th January 2009 in Where I Live By Mike Didymus
The future development of the prime Cocks Crescent site in the centre of New Malden was set down by Kingston Council’s executive committee on January 13 - but officers face a fight with residents over many of the plans.
About 200 new homes were originally proposed for the Blagdon Road site, and although this figure was removed from the final report, respondents to a consultation in September were hugely concerned with the impact of extra housing on the local infrastructure.
But residents’ chief concern was over a perceived council plot to move the popular Crescent and Causeway resource centres, which provide day services to people with learning and physical disabilities, to a smaller site some distance from the centre of town.
And they are suspicious of a planning application made by Barratt, which owns a portion of the Cocks Crescent site, to build a new day care centre at 59 Kingston Road as part of a large development of flats.
Despite council officer Steve Cardis assuring councillors at the Maldens and Coombe Planning Sub Committee last week that “there has not been any discussion at any point at this time with developers”, Barratt’s day centre application was made on July 29 - a full month before the official consultation began.
Peter Murphy, development officer for Barratt West London, said: “Following discussions with the council during last summer, Barratt has submitted two applications for the development of the site in Kingston Road.
“One is for solely residential use and one is for ground floor commercial space which we have offered to the council, with apartments for private sale above.”
Councillor Patrick Codd, chairman of the Maldens and Coombe Neighbourhood Committee, was damning of the way the consultation results had been interpreted by the council.
Speaking at the executive meeting, he said: “Earlier when I saw the addition to the report I was extremely angry.
“In all the years I have been on the council I have never come across officers' comments in such a self regarding and dismissal of the views of the elected members of the council, not to mention the residents who bothered to fill in questionnaires of the consultation we engaged in at a cost to the council.
“I find it totally unacceptable we can have the views of members dismissed out of hand.
“If we are going to allow this sort of thing to happen let's not have a council. Let's just let officers get on with it.”
“This has become totemic with the people of New Malden. We have seen so much moved out, particularly with people who are less advantaged.
“I would hope we would have another look at this brief before it is stamped, sealed and delivered.”
Mary Theobold, who helps run Arthritis Care, New Malden in the Crescent resource centre, said her group was distraught over the proposed relocation.
She said: “The situation now has become dire.
“Our average age of attendance is 80ish, with four in their 90s and three in wheelchairs.
“We’re in real despair because the centre now is 100 per cent suitable for the type of people we have here.
“I’ve been doing arthritis care for 25 or 30 years and I’m older than some of my clients.
“We don’t want to move, but they want us out and we know that.”
The council development brief, which was rubber stamped by the council executive at last Tuesday’s meeting, states it would cost £1m to restore the 30-year-old resource centre building to its original condition, plus another £500,000 to raise it to a modern standard.
But St James ward councillor Ken Smith said: “If that’s what it’s going to cost then so be it.
“If we have got millions going to the theatre, we have got millions we can spend on our residents.”
Other proposals made in the brief include retaining the Malden Centre, providing new shops and offices, and possibly relocating the New Malden library on-site as part of a ‘community hub’.
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