January 2013 – Page 2 – a spark in your veins

10th January 2013

Woolwich Police Station

What has Woolwich done to deserve this? The Victorian post office has been demolished and its architectural adornments put into storage, the 124 year old Woolwich Free Ferry is threatened with closure, as is the 126 year old Woolwich Fire Station and now there is a proposal to close Woolwich Police Station. The police station in Market Street is a comparative youngster; it was built in 1909 – 10, just 103 years ago, though there has been a police station in Woolwich since 1840 according to English Heritage’s amazing book about Woolwich.

The Mayor’s Office of Policing and Crime (MOPAC) have proposed closure of 65 police stations across London in their draft Estate Strategy 2013-2016 which has just been issued for consultation. This includes three out of the five Greenwich police stations, as shown on the map snippet below taken from the Guardian’s datablog: Woolwich, Thamesmead and Greenwich police stations would close leaving just Plumstead and Eltham in the borough. Plumstead would be the only 24 hour station in Greenwich, so I assume that means it will be the borough’s “Grip and Pace” centre. The what centre? In the Metropolitan Police’s own words:

The new model will also see the introduction of war room-style ‘Grip and Pace’ centres where senior officers will have daily conferences with key staff, armed with the latest intelligence and data to coordinate police activities and ensure all the right resources are being used in the right places at the right times.

The changes, as you might have guessed, are being made to save money – the aim is to reduce the cost of police buildings by 30% from £205 million a year to £140 million by 2016, but at the same time they will try:

To achieve these cost and space reductions whilst enhancing the opportunities for members of the public to meet with the police through providing more access facilities in buildings across both the MPS and wider public estates as part of the overall accessibility strategy to the MPS

The justification for the cuts seems to be partly that the public interactions with the police via a police station front desk have reduced compared to other ways of contacting the police, and also that the police are more distributed through the safer neighbourhood teams.

There are a series of consultation events covering these and other changes to London policing. In Greenwich this will be at King William Court, University of Greenwich Tuesday, 29 January, 2013 from 8.00pm to 9.00pm. You will need to register if you want to attend.

Snippet from Guardian Data Blog Police stations in London under threat of closure

Woolwich Police Station is a Grade II listed building which was designed by John Dixon Butler who was then the Police Architect and Surveyor. Butler also designed the Magistrates Court on the opposite side of market street and a number of other police buildings throughout London, including Greenwich Magistrates Court, Hackney Police Station, Shoreditch Police Station and Magistrates Court and Clerkenwell Magistrates Court. The Survey of London on Woolwich describes the Woolwich Police Station as “a strong example of Dixon Butler’s work and a subtly elegant expression of authority.” Its listing describes it as having a “restrained Queen Anne facade” and:

To Market Street, a wide and largely symmetrical frontage is of sixteen windows bays, organised into a five parts, with a steep gable with stone copings marking the end and central sections, between which are second floor dropped slated mansard roofs over a dentillated cornice. The ground floor has a deep ashlar band, the pedestrian entrance to the right hand side has an advanced ashlar entrance with ‘police’ inscribed in the frieze below the prominent cornice, and to the right an ashlar canted bay. Pair of front doors of panelled hard wood, and the stone architrave carries the 1910 date. There is a carriage entrance to the left side, this and the ground floor tripartite windows are under inset segmental arches. The carriage entrance is lined with glazed bricks, white above a brown dado. The first floor windows have exaggerated slender stone keyblocks. Rear elevation has irregular window arrangement, these under gauged brick arches, and a single storey flat-roofed extension. To the rear is a projecting cell block wing with gauged red brick arches over the sash windows; seven small cell windows, placed high, one replaced with taller window, these with small pane iron frames, chamfered stone heads and stone cills. Boundary wall to yard survives in part, but the former stable buildings to rear have been substantially rebuilt.

The listing also points out the particularly strong group value of the police station with the other Victorian and Edwardian municipal buildings of this part of Woolwich. The draft Woolwich Master Plan says of this “Bathway Quarter”:

This area has a rich character which should be preserved though sensitive residential-led refurbishment with active uses at ground floor to create a distinct urban quarter. This area has the potential to be a high quality, high-specification, loft-style place with bars, galleries and artists’ studios together with other uses such as a jazz club and creative industries such as architect’s studios.

Hopefully this means the building will be preserved even if it is no longer a police station.

The Blue Lamp at Woolwich Police Station

7th January 2013

Farm Field Break-in

Fence between bridge and Swingate Wood 11 am

I heard from Maggie at Woodlands Farm that they had suffered from further criminal activity over the Christmas period. She e-mailed to say:

On December 30th on a routine check of the ewes in the fields, we found the metal palisade fence by the bridge at the end of Hillview/Old Coals fields had been broken. This could not be an accident or done by a casual walker, someone brought bolt cutters to do that. See attached photo of broken fence and path they made through Swingate Wood to get there.

Volunteers went up immediately and mended the fence. An hour later a different volunteer, he would not mind me saying he is an elderly person, heard noise and voices from the area, walked up and found men cutting the repaired bolts to break in again. They threatened him with violence. He rushed back to the farm mess room. We called the police who appeared immediately, but neither the police and cars who went to the Dryden/Keats Road end, nor the people who went through the farm, caught anyone.

From the tracks on the path and the noise heard by the volunteer we are pretty sure that the would-be intruders were intending to bring a motorcycle onto the fields.

Obviously fence mended yet again that day and we will need to keep alert. We have ewes expecting lambs in March/April up in the fields, on the driest parts of the farm.

The site of the break-in is close to the currently blocked stretch of the Green Chain Walk mentioned in previous posts; the path goes through Swingate Wood before reaching the gate to the farm. Doubtless this will harden the resolve of the farm volunteers to prevent open access to their fields from that end of the farm.

4th January 2013

River Crossings

Councillor Denise Hyland at the launch of Bridge the Gap

The debate about new river Thames crossings for east London has tended to focus on the proposal to construct a new Silvertown tunnel next to the Blackwall Tunnel. Objectors are concerned that increasing tunnel capacity while leaving unchanged the roads that feed the tunnels, such as the A102 Blackwall Tunnel Approach, will lead to an increase in traffic jams and hence an increase in air pollution. A No to Silvertown Tunnel campaign has been started and has launched a petition against the tunnel.

However the proposal to replace the Woolwich Free Ferry with a new bridge at Gallions Reach could have an equally harmful effect on traffic and air quality in residential roads in the east of the Royal Borough of Greenwich, and in neighbouring Bexley. The Google Maps snippet below shows roughly where the proposed Gallions Reach crossing would be sited (there’s an official picture in a previous post). How will traffic get to this new crossing? The consultation documents express the view that “any new tunnel or bridge at Gallions Reach would be likely to be used mostly by local traffic” because most A2 traffic would head for the tunnels at Blackwall and Silvertown, but there is no backup for this view. Just looking at the map it seems equally possible that A2 traffic would leave the motorway at the Bexley or Danson exits and cut across to the new crossing – through residential streets, down narrow Knee Hill or through East Wickham and Plumstead. This seems especially likely if for some reason the tunnel route is closed.

Google Maps snippet showing where the Gallions Reach Bridge would be

The Royal Borough of Greenwich Council is supporting the proposed new crossings, and prefers the option of a bridge at Gallions Reach rather than a ferry. Their Bridge the Gap campaign with Newham Council was launched today, without any trace of irony, near the 124 year old Woolwich Free Ferry which would be closed if the proposals go through. The council believe that building new river crossings is essential to promote economic growth in the borough and create jobs, and they also believe it will reduce traffic congestion and air pollution. They are relying on Transport for London however for the detailed backup to the proposals such as a cost/benefit analysis and traffic modelling. At the launch Councillor Denise Hyland expected most traffic to approach a new Gallions Reach bridge via Western Way, and said she would oppose any future threat to Oxleas Wood from demand for additional traffic capacity between the A2 and the new bridge. I’m not so sure that future councillors would necessarily have the same opinion if faced with major congestion on small roads.

Having sat in traffic queues at both the Woolwich Free Ferry and the Blackwall Tunnel I can sympathise with drivers who have to cross the river regularly, but until some more detailed work has been done on the impact of the new crossing on traffic volumes, including the effect on minor roads, it’s not clear that the proposed new crossings will actually solve the problem and may even make it worse because new roads often lead to increased traffic volumes.

Opponents of the proposed crossings also came along to the Bridge the Gap launch, as you can see in the picture below and on the Kidbrooke Kite blog.

Objectors at the launch of the Bridge the Gap campaign

The Transport for London consultation on the proposals continues until 1st February and we can make any comments on the proposals until then using an online survey with just 14 questions, or by e-mail to rivercrossings@tfl.gov.uk.

Also the London Assembly Transport Committee has arranged a seminar about TfL’s proposals next Wednesday, 9th January. Their e-mail about the seminar gave the details:

Seminar on River Crossings
We want to get people and organisations with different viewpoints to discus the need for additional river crossings in East London. A consultation, currently running, by Transport for London (TfL) is seeking views on options including a road tunnel between Silvertown and the Greenwich peninsula. It has also posed the idea of tolling the new tunnel and Blackwall Tunnel.
This seminar will provide an opportunity to discuss whether there is a need for new river crossings in London, and to consider what options might be needed to address any need for additional capacity. Expert guests (see below) will be invited to raise some of the key issues that need to be taken into account and there will be an opportunity for members of the public to put forward their views and opinions.
The guests who have been invited to take part are:
• Michèle Dix, Managing Director, Planning, TfL
• German Dector-Vega, London Director, Sustrans
• John Dickie, Director of Strategy and Policy, London First
• Richard Bourn, Traffic and Planning Campaigner, Campaign for Better Transport
• David Quarmby, Chairman, RAC Foundation
The seminar will be held from 2-4pm on Wednesday 9 January in the Chamber at City Hall (nearest Tube at London Bridge or Tower Hill). All are welcome to attend. It would be useful if you are able to register your attendance: transportcommittee@london.gov.uk or 020 7983 4206.