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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 provider; it is a central part of our community. Seniors, small business owners, and many other groups depend on the convenience and accessibility it offers. Forcing people to undertake a potentially challenging, resource-consuming journey to another location is not a viable solution. Clapham PO has already closed, and Brixton PO is also being threatened with closure. So many local banks have closed that the post office is often the only place residents can access banking services.

Post offices are a lifeline for many members of the community, especially those who cannot access online services. 17 million UK adults rely on their local post office – a reflection of its continued importance (source: Citizens Advice Bureau). Here in Kennington, Oval, Princes and Vauxhall we form a significant part of this population, and our needs must be taken into account.

Our MP, Florence Eshalomi, and local councillors are already making the case for the Kennington Park branch to be saved. Florence called a well-attended community meeting in November, where initial plans to campaign were made, and she has met with the national leadership of the Post Office to advocate on Kennington’s behalf.

An online petition has been set up to fight any closure decision. You can add your name here, and we urge you to do so. We won last time by demonstrating the strength of local opposition to closure – we can do it again!

 

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.