Write to say ‘No’ to the Draft Open Space Strategy

This draft strategy is the plan for our Parks, open- and green-spaces for the next ten years. The devil is in the (very) small print: to rank and ‘dispose’ of an unnamed number of parks/open spaces. The council has provided a survey for you to input your views. However, it seems to mislead the participant into (1) filling in their open space usage (2) focussing on the least controversial content of the Strategy (which is conveniently hidden in size 6 font in a sideways table). Instead, you might also want to email: william@ocat.co.uk (portfolio holder) James.Hilsden@bromley.gov.uk & will.harmer@bromley.gov.uk with the following points (putting them in your own words would be good):

* we need is an Open Space Strategy in which the Council “brave enough” to resist ‘repurposing‘ of any more Open Space. This comment leads on to our conviction that open spaces are a precious amenity and there should be no question of ‘development’ or ‘disposal’ for whatever reason.

* Maintenance has already been cut to the bone and reduced to mainly grass cutting and pruning where once it was used for wonderful floral borders and creative planting. We need more, not less, maintenance funding, if our open space heritage is to regain even a small measure of their previous appearance.  There should be an investment in the un-made footpaths on our parks and commons to cater for the increased dog ownership following the work from home trend.

* ‘Increase commercial use of the Open Space Portfolio to offset management costs and a sponsorship strategy to provide more innovative income streams‘ sounds like privatisation of our public parks for commercial profit, (to offset council maintenance costs) and resulting in the compromise public enjoyment of the space. This strategy is not the place for such objectives, and they be put forward in a separate plan for people to comment on.

* Make sure that the “events programme that supports the Bromley and Local economy” does not include large-scale events. People do not want to find that our parks suffer like Clapham Common (and half a dozen other London parks) that become seas of mud, fenced off from residents from March to September every year.

* There should also be concrete plans to restore our heritage Palace Park, its plantings and it’s listed structures – such as the recently collapsed ice house.  The stated plans for restoring the vulnerable brickwork at Scadbury Park, and the bandstand in Croydon Rec are good, but the Palace Park is actually more historic.  We do not want to be held to ransom for the community levy payments from unwanted high-rises in the town centre.

However, if you want to fill in the survey, here, we have some suggestions of entries you could make that reflect these serious problems, further down the page, here. Here’s the location of (Bromley’s) Open Space Strategy: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/XNWWJGC.  We have also drawn up a list of actions that are promised for individual parks: (our post here) For comparison, the Open Space Strategy that Lewisham drew up this year, included the following:

* [Lewisham] to inject £1 million of extra facilities and improvements to parks and open spaces over the five years via the ‘Greening Fund’

* [Lewisham] is divided into three themes based on public consultation responses – social, economic, and, environmental – and lists the priorities and goals of those themes.

* [Lewisham] to refuse planning permission for all “insensitive development, on site or on surrounding land that significantly erodes the biodiversity value, quality, use, access or enjoyment of designated green and open spaces”.

* [Lewisham, Economic] Priority –To preserve and where possible, enhance the quality of existing green and open spaces, to deliver eco-system services and a range of public benefits, including play, habitat creation, landscape improvements and flood storage

* [Lewisham, Economic] Priority – To achieve a cost effective high quality parks service that delivers continuous improvement

Filling in the Survey: We have some suggestions as to what you might like to enter for the Open Space Strategy survey (here) which organises our points into the questions of the survey:

10. Do you think that the strategy will help improve the Bromley Council Open Spaces? section “Please let us know why you have indicated this?”		Please enter ‘No’, as we think that the idea of ‘redevelopment and disposal‘ should be removed (belongs in the Local Plan).  The Strategy lacks vision and investment (as opposed to Lewisham’s £1m); and it lacks specific targets for biodiversity, tree planting, or even a baseline for such targets; it decreases investment in maintenance (which needs increasing to address the increased post-covid usage); that it does not address improving non-park open spaces like grass verges.
11. Have we identified the main challenges that drive the strategy (these are shown at pages 12 and 13)? Please enter ‘No’		The Strategy is orientated towards selling open space and reducing maintenance costs; it is not orientated towards engaging the community and friends towards embracing, jointly improving, and investing in their open space heritage.
12. The strategy includes 8 strands at pages 15-22. Would you please put each of these in priority order?		These KSS themes are vague but laudable and we feel the Council should have the ambition to achieve all of them, and therefore doesn’t need prioritising.
(KSS1) Next to “Strategic Open Space”		We feel that none of the open space should be disposed of, and there should be community-consultation-based improvement schemes for poorest sites.
“KSS2 Natural Open Space”, “KSS 3 – Healthy and Active Open Space”, and “KSS 4 – Welcoming Open Space”, “KSS 6 – Community Open Space”, and “KSS 7 – Learning Open Space”		These are good themes, but somewhat obvious; and without detail, plans and targets, they are fluff and should not be included in the Strategy.
“KSS 5 – Sustainable Open Space”		The concern here is that, turning our parks (not other open space) into green energy provision – solar, wind and heat pump – would involve fencing out the communities they provide amenity for, and these structures, with their limited biodiversity improvement, should be applied to barren arable land not public parks.
“KSS 8 – Funding our Open Space”		This option is also vague, but could imply privatisation of our open space and excluding the communities from them. Without detail, it should not be included.
13. The strategy has 5 objectives and an example of these at pages 23-33, do you have any comments about them?
SO1 Fit for Purpose Open Space portfolio	There should be no Action or Objective for ‘redevelopment and disposal’ of any open space; the council should invest in the poorest open space to deliver amenity for the community. Open spaces are a precious amenity and there should be no question of development or disposal for whatever reason.
SO2 Sustainable Assets, Built Form, Function and Open Space	The Glassmill reservoir work has had much preparation work already done by Thames 21; this project should be priority and not put off until 2022/23 and should be considered as a major historic visitor attraction it has the potential to be.
SO3 Delivering Net Zero Carbon	“a ’green town’ concept model and obtain approval to proposal…and initiate pilot projects at the town centre parks”. What is a green town model? What is the impact on our town centre parks? Will people still be able to enjoy the parks? Will the heritage ornamental gardens be restored?
SO4 Supporting the Bromley and Local Economy	The proposals ‘Investigate re-purposing urban centre open spaces, to support the local economy‘, ‘Develop key town centre open spaces to support a growing night-time economy‘ and ‘Deliver a sustainable events programme that supports the Bromley and Local economy‘ are quite threatening. These proposals should have precise details for community consultation; and reassurance that the amenity of the town centre parks will be enhanced, and do not include large-scale events. People do not want to find that our parks suffer like Clapham Common (and half a dozen other London parks) that become seas of mud with large events, and fenced off from residents from March to September every year.
SO5 Financially Viable Open Space Portfolio	‘Increase commercial use of the Open Space Portfolio to offset management costs and a sponsorship strategy to provide more innovative income streams‘ needs explanation as it could imply of privatisation of our public parks for commercial profit to cut council maintenance costs risking detriment to the public benefit, for private commercial gain.
14. Do you have any other comments or observations about the strategy?		The alarming and unwelcome proposals are buried in small print, either in infographics or in a very small font, orientated sideways in tables. This makes the careful reader suspect the intentions of the council and erodes trust. These proposals should be spelled out in full in the main document. The case studies could be relegated to the appendices.
15. Overall, how much are you in support of the strategy?		You could chose the ‘Not in Support’ and in ‘Tell us why you have made this choice’. Bromley deserves an Open Space Strategy that aspires to improve all open space to be good quality amenity for the community. Replace the bloat with vague principles and uncorroborated aims.  Instead, have uncontroversial goals, that have clear and specific plans to achieve them, and the criteria by which their achievement is evaluated.

A note on the document structure of Bromley’s Open Space Strategy: all the alarming and unwelcome proposals are buried in small print, either in infographics or in a very small font (size 6!), orientated sideways in tables. Around these are glossy pictures and out-of-borough case studies that, whilst inspiring, do not align with the stated objectives of reducing investment and maintenance. The Strategy also mentions putting wind turbines at Martins Hill and solar panels in Library/Church House gardens. As these proposals are ridiculous for a town centre park, it is possible that these are only here so they can be removed later ‘because of public opinion’. Therefore we don’t think it’s worth your time commenting on them.