Reason
In light of Greenwich Hospital’s recent ‘consultation’ which took place after they had submitted plans for the redevelopment to Greenwich Council I would like the council to turn down any applications that have not undergone a real, open and transparent consultation process.
Petition
[[petition-3]]
Kirsty from Communique – who act on behalf of Greenwich Hospital – has been in touch with the following clarification:
Your online petition for Greenwich Market states that the consultation took place after the plans for the market has been submitted to Greenwich Council. I am writing to correct this assumption.
If there are any doubts about the level of consultation undertaken by Greenwich Hospital, I would refer people to the Greenwich Market consultation website – http://www.greenwichmarketconsultation.org.uk. The website sets out, in great detail, the many meetings the Hospital have taken part in before, during and now after the planning application was finalised.
In January 2007 Greenwich Hospital initiated the Key Stakeholder Consultative Group, chaired by Nick Raysford MP, whose membership includes LB Greenwich, Greenwich Foundation, National Maritime Museum, Market Traders, Urban Space Management, Greenwich Town Centre Traders Association, Chamber of Commerce, Greenwich Peninsula Partnership, Town Centre Residents and The Greenwich Society. The KSCG have been meeting regularly since January 2007 and suggestions from the meetings have framed the design of the market.
In terms of public consultation, a public exhibition was held in Greenwich on 5 & 6 October 2007, in which the views and opinions of local people were sought by Greenwich Market. People were encouraged to fill in a feedback form with their comments, posting them in a sealed ballot box. The feedback forms were analysed by Electoral Reform Services (ERS), an independent company who did not pass on the completed forms to Greenwich Hospital. A report on the findings from the feedback forms was produced by ERS and was published on the Greenwich Market Consultation website. The publication of the report was press released in the Greenwich media in November 2007.
Several hundred interested parties received regular emails when updates about the market proposals were posted onto the consultation website. These emails encouraged people to get in touch if they had any queries or wanted to make a comment and we aimed to get answers to people as soon as we could. There is also a “contact us” page on the consultation website so those people with queries can get in touch at any time.
On top of this, seven newsletters have been produced by Greenwich Hospital on the redevelopment of the market, delivered directly to residents in Greenwich over the last two years. Four newsletters were delivered in 2007, two in 2008 and the most recent in April 2009. This last newsletter was the invitation to attend the public exhibition to view the plans submitted to the Council.
The public exhibition in 22 Nelson Road on 24 and 24 April was a presentation of the regeneration proposals. It was not advertised as a consultation.
Greenwich Hospital certainly did a lot more PR this time round, but, the question I would still ask is whether the full and final plans were made available for public consultation for a substantial period of time before they were submitted to Greenwich Planning?
Rob, you are incorrect, I am a local East Greenwich resident and I have never received any of your newsletters. In addition, putting up a website does not make people aware of the proposals in any way shape or form.
I was not invited to the presentation / exhibition nor was even aware of it.
I only happened to find out about this travesty by luck through a Google search, google has billions of web pages, I was incredibly lucky to find it.
As a local resident who was unaware of this proposal till today, and who knows many other local people (who are also unaware) I wish to take this opportunity to strongly oppose this eyesore of a development in Greenwich Market.
Rob, sorry, I meant to address my previous post to Kirsty from Communique. I’m so angry I can’t see straight!
Michael
I think that the major problem with current development in Greenwich is that there is no meaningful public consultation (and I am not only referring to Greenwich Hospital here)
I think that the rush to redevelop needs to stop and give everyone a chance to ask what the town needs and what will help improve it as a place to live in and visit.
I, for one, am fed up of people (who rarely live in Greenwich) telling me what is going to improve my town and my quality of life. The current building site town centre doesn’t improve my quality of life and the hotel being built in the market square won’t improve the quality of life of market traders or shop keepers who will not have a market stall under the new proposals.
However, it will improve the quality of life of the CEO of the hotel chain who can expect a big bonus for getting a hotel in a prime London location. Hooray! Big business wins again and hopefully some of the shop keepers currently bringing character to the market will be able to get a job in the new hotel as waiters or something.