Reclaiming Kennington Oval!

Lambeth Council has restricted traffic on the roads going through and surrounding Kennington Park Estate and called it Kennington Oval Reimagined. We – the residents – are campaigning to Reclaim Kennington Oval. Lambeth’s objectives of healthy neighbourhoods, improved air quality, traffic reduction, increased cycling and walking, and safer streets are all admirable. Sadly, the way they are implementing them is not. Major traffic-heavy roads encircle Oval cricket ground and Kennington Park Estate, but it is the quiet streets within that circle which are now subject to wide-ranging controls. The pollution, noise and poor air quality from the major roads will continue unabated. With school streets at either end denying access for two hours a day, large planters taking up half the width of the narrow streets and new double yellow lines, residents’ lives are being severely disrupted. There is only one narrow access road into most of the Estate. Large…

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Kennington Park Community Centre is being refurbished, not demolished – see the latest plans!

Since consultation with residents began last summer, the Hyde Group has made substantial changes to its original proposal to demolish and replace the Community Centre.   Residents made their hostility to these plans very clear, and many argued for the current Centre to be refurbished rather than demolished. This is what is now happening. Current plans now comprise retaining the best features of the Community Centre, in particular the Main Hall, and refurbishing the rest of the building to modernise it, enlarge the community room, rebuild the toilets and drains, and make it more pleasant, more eco-friendly and more cost-effective for us all to use. The courtyard space will be extended and turned into a community garden. And there will be a community cafe as part of the space at the front of the building. The current Arts Depot building will be replaced by modern facilities for community and creative…

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