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Save Kenny!

 

The Friends of Kennington Park (FoKP) are calling on Lambeth Council to honour its pledge to restore the 1970s skatebowl in Kennington Park, known locally as the ‘Kenny.’

Despite years of planning, surveys, and contracts, the project was abruptly halted this year as part of the Council’s capital spending review.

FoKP have launched a petition https://www.change.org/p/save-kennington-skatebowl-from-the-cuts

 

Calling all skateboarders and fans of Kennington Park

The longstanding project to reopen the iconic and popular 1970s skatebowl, known as Kenny, is now at risk of being abandoned.

“This is a really positive project for many user groups in the local community … Skateboarding is a growing sport … accessible, and gives a fantastic opportunity to engage with young people who are ‘turned off’ by traditional sport and activity.”  Skateboard GB

Lambeth Council had the money for the work, but are now considering withdrawing the funding from this important project. We are the Friends of Kennington Park (FoKP). We want to stop that happening.

  • The plan is to fully restore the iconic 1970s bowl and to improve it by adding a spectator area and ramped access, clearing the jungle of trees and bushes around it to bring it back into the park. To secure funding for the bowl, FoKP agreed to move money across from other development projects.
  • Lambeth told us that would mean enough money would be available for the skatebowl. Work to make the project a reality has been going on for well over a year.
  • Early this year everything was ready for the contractors to start work.
  • Lots of public money has already been spent getting to this point. If the restoration doesn’t happen, all that money will have been wasted.
  • The skatebowl will be left as an unsafe, decaying eyesore.
  • Restoring it will create an attractive space, opening up the area, bringing it into the park, creating a great leisure space. Removing the skatebowl will cost a lot of money and leave an empty space.

Now is the time to act – the project will restore a popular historic skatebowl, one of the first of its kind in the UK.

Now is the time to act – if the funding is made available by the Council, the work can begin soon.

Help us bring Kenny back into full use!

Let Lambeth Councillors know what you think! Visit our website www.kenningtonpark.org to find out how.

 

 

Housing Perks

Pay some Rent while you Shop?

Sounds too good to be true!

 

Hyde has just announced that they’ve partnered with Housing Perks – an app that allows residents to save money by spending on everyday essentials, which can then be put towards your rent, including towards arrears.

Designed especially for housing association residents, Housing Perks is a free money saving mobile app. It helps you save money towards your rent arrears – by simply shopping, going for a coffee or having a family day out. You can earn money towards your rent by shopping at major retailers including ASDA, Sainsbury’s, Primark, Currys, Argos and Marks and Spencer.

Housing Perks is trusted by over 60 housing associations and local authorities, supporting over 700,000 tenants across the UK. Signing up is free and easy and you make savings when you spend – whether it’s on food, sports kit, or a day out.

How it works

Housing Perks works at hundreds of national retailers including all major supermarkets. When you buy a voucher through Housing Perks, the money you save can automatically be used as a contribution towards your rent balance.

Vouchers appear instantly on your phone if purchased through the app. Pay with the voucher at the retailer and the saving will be automatically contributed towards your rent account.

The transaction can be for virtually any amount, and then Housing Perks puts up to 20% of the transaction towards your rent arrears at no cost to you. For example: buy a £100 Asda voucher with a 4% discount. You pay £100, get a £100 voucher and £4 goes towards your rent.

 

How to get started?

It’s really simple to use. Just download the Housing Perks app for free from the Apple app store or Google Play Store.

Sign up and select ‘Hyde’ from the drop-down menu.

Enter your payment reference number and your account will be registered to your address. You can find your payment reference number on your rent statement or on communications from us.

Whenever you shop, select the retailer from the Housing Perks app and buy a voucher for the amount you need.

The voucher appears in your app after a few seconds. Pay with the voucher at the retailer and the saving will be automatically contributed towards your rent account.

Our TRA chair is going to try it out to see if it’s as easy as they say. She shops online. Does it work?
Yes – it worked! Bought £20 voucher which was then deducted from shopping bill as an e-gift card = 60p added to rent account! As they say: ‘every little bit helps’. 😊

Parking on Kennington Park Estate

Hyde Housing has changed the way UKCPM manage parking on our Estate.

These are the key points of the new SIPPI system which came into effect on 1 April 2025.

1.  Permit Prices
  • Lower emission vehicles: ie. those that are ULEZ compliant, will be charged at £90 per year for the first car.
  • Hyde social rent tenants: social rent tenants will receive a 20% discount. This means that for social residents with a ULEZ complaint car the cost of an annual permit is reduced to £72 per year for the first car.
  • Additional vehicles and cars that are not ULEZ exempt: the permits for second cars and non-ULEZ complaint cars will increase to £200 per year (regardless of tenancy type). Hyde do not normally issue more than two permits per home, but in instances where an exception is made, additional vehicles will be charged at the commercial parking rate, which is currently £250 per year.
  • Motorbikes: There’s no charge for motorbike parking, but motorbikes will be ticketed if not parked legally.
2.  Blue Badge holders will receive free permits
The Blue Badge scheme covers public highways and not private car parks. However, to improve services to disabled residents, the first permit will be free to Blue Badge holders where the vehicle is registered at the home address. Second permits will cost £180 per year.
3.  Key workers will receive free permits
Residents who are NHS staff, police staff, fire brigade staff, qualified teachers, or members of the British Armed Forces will no longer pay for their first parking permit. Second permits will be charged at £180.
4.  Visitors, carers, taxis, deliveries, emergency vehicles
  • Visitors: There will be increased access to visitor permits.
  • Carers: The new parking app will make it easier to access passes for carers.
  • Taxi and delivery vehicles: Will continue to benefit from a grace period to ensure parcels etc can be delivered to your home.
  • Emergency vehicles: These will remain exempt from tickets during active service and may not always use a marked bay.
More information can be found on Hyde’s website

 

 

School Streets

Lambeth’s School Streets

 

There are two School Streets on Kennington Park Estate.
The school street outside St Mark’s Primary School extends along Kennington Oval from Harleyford Street to Vauxhall Street. You can see a map of the area here
And the Henry Fawcett School Street goes from Kennington Road along Bowling Green Street and Magee Street. Click here to see map of the area.
All vehicles, apart from those with exemptions, are banned from these streets between 8.15-9.15am and 2.45-3.45pm during term time.
You can apply for an exemption if you are either:
  • a resident or a business within a school street, who requires access during its hours of operation
  • a Blue Badge holder who requires access to the school street during its hours of operation.
For residents and businesses exemptions the following proof is required:
  • You will need to provide copies of the vehicle registration document (V5/C) or valid insurance schedule, ensuring they are in the applicant’s name and registered at the address within the school street.
  • If you are hiring or leasing the vehicle we will need to see a copy of the signed hiring/leasing agreement. It must be on letter-headed paper and include the duration of the hire or lease period.
  • If you drive a company car you will need to provide:
    • a copy of the vehicle registration document (V5)
    • a signed letter (on letter-headed paper) from your company confirming your employment and that you are the keeper and user of the vehicle at the property address within the school street (must be dated within the last 3 months)
  • If you are a named driver but not the registered keeper, you will need to provide the insurance schedule naming yourself as a driver (this needs to be registered to the address within the school street).
For blue badge holder exemptions, the following proof is required:
  • Blue Badge (both sides)
You have to apply online at https://epermits.lambeth.gov.uk/

 

 

The TRA is opposed to these school streets, not because we disagree with any of their aims of creating safer and more pleasant environments outside of schools, of reducing road danger at the school gates, tackling congestion, improving air quality and increasing active travel to school, but because they are combined with the Kennington Oval Reimagined scheme to restrict traffic over a large area, and this is having a very bad effect on residents and local businesses who are unable to carry on their lives without a whole range of problems. See our post here.

 

 

 

Reclaiming Kennington Oval!

The difference between June and September

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 vehicles are getting stuck there on a regular basis, and other traffic, including emergency vehicles, must queue behind them.

Taxi drivers are reluctant to enter the Estate along that narrow road, meaning hospital appointments and travel arrangements are being missed, and passengers with luggage or the weekly shop have been dumped at a distance from their homes. Deliveries have become a matter of chance. Health professionals can’t make urgent home visits. Contractors and operatives are deterred from entering the Estate, and emergency callouts early in the day are often delayed.

Many residents are elderly and/or disabled and rely on taxis, food and medical supply deliveries, carers, and family or friend visitors.

Speeding e-bikers love the empty streets. So do Kia Oval’s cricket fans who can now spread out around the area before and after matches. But parents are loath to let their children play there, not when there’s play equipment within the Estate’s enclosed courtyards. Kennington Park Estate residents enjoy a green environment, with a community garden and many mature trees and bushes, much in contrast to the unkempt graffiti-covered planters in the empty ‘play’ streets.

School and play streets are a great idea if it means reducing vehicle emissions, but not if small nursery or year 1 children are expected to walk a long distance, or if there is nowhere to stop for those who can’t use public transport or whose parents are on the way to work.

We would love to live in a healthy neighbourhood. But the Council has picked the wrong roads for its project and we want our neighbourhood back.

Consultation on the Emergency Traffic Order restricting our streets ends on 3 December 2024. https://haveyoursay.lambeth.gov.uk/en-GB/projects/kennington-oval/4

Sign our petition calling on the Council to remove these obstacles so that we can reclaim Kennington Oval for our community and its residents.

https://chng.it/rftww8LGVV

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 activities on the ground floor; the eight flats on top will be no higher than the existing buildings and will be let at social rents.

We will post the latest designs as they become available. The latest information can be found at https://www.hyde-housing.co.uk/contact-us/community-centres/kennington-park-community-centre/ and https://www.hyde-housing.co.uk/media/li4baccr/kpcc-workinginprogressdesigns.pdf

 

 

 

KPCC Community Benefit Society

Live on Kennington Park Estate? Live or work nearby? Come to events or activities in the Centre? Do you want to be more involved in our local community? Why not become a Member of the Community Benefit Society now running our Community Centre?

A membership form can be found here – please complete and return to Kennington Park Community Centre, 8 Harleyford Street, SE11 5SY, or by email   to kpcc.cbs@gmail.com.

Kennington Park Post Office is threatened with closure – again!

  The Post Office has announced ‘a corporate restructuring’ – and Kennington Park Post Office is one of 115 branches across the country, including 32 in London, at risk of closure. No decisions have yet been announced, and there is still a chance that the branch will remain as it is. The Post Office are expected to provide an update on their plans for the at-risk branches in March 2025. If a change of service at Kennington is announced, this could mean a franchise partner comes in to manage the branch as an alternative to closure.   Any changes would likely take months before being implemented and would have to go through statutory public consultation. Local residents successfully campaigned to save Kennington Park Post office thirteen years ago, resulting in its renovation. Let’s not lose this vital facility for our community. The post office is more than just a service…

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