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The Sad Old Ruins of Labour Lambeth
June 2, 2010 1:08 PM
Word reaches us that Brixton's one and only multi-story car park in Pope's Road just behind the Brixton Wreck (sorry Rec) is now about to be visited by the wrecking ball as it has just been declared unsafe.
This is really bad news for the Market Traders who Labour cosied-up to a while back but who have now had their pockets well and truly picked. Some of the car park's upper floors had been closed for a while due to falling masonry. Then last year - just in time for Christmas - Labour closed the car park temporarily pending structural surveys.
The market traders were not happy bunnies - during the election they claimed that their takings were down by between a quarter and a third. Still at least the closure was only temporary………..
Then with the election safely out of the way, Labour breezily announces that the car park will be completely demolished and with immediate effect.
The announcement raises more questions than answers. It appears that there have been three surveys done on the Pope's Road Car Park dating back as far as 2005. The latest abseiling survey (what a picture that paints) in February of this year was probably far too close to the election ever to break cover.
But the clues were already there. The Annual Property Performance Report of July 2009 stated darkly:
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>
> Car Parks
>
> The Council owns one large car park in central Brixton
> which is in a very poor state of repair and only capable of use in part.
> The cost of maintaining the structure of the existing car park is high
> and the facility is beyond its useful life expectancy. The Brixton Masterplan
> does not provide for like-for-like replacement of the spaces with
> provision being split over a number of locations and it is not clear
> if an assessment of requirement has been undertaken.
>
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So the writing was on the wall more than a year ago and was sprayed all over Pope's Road Car Park like graffiti last July.
Yet there was apparently not a dickie-bird from the Lambeth Leadership then and there's not much being said publicly even now.
Seems like Council Taxpayers have been shelling out loads on keeping a dangerous structure moth-balled and now that the Council greybeards have actually declared the building unsafe and in danger of killing people there's a mad rush on to demolish it at a premium price of £1 Million.
Of course, being Lambeth, no budget has been identified for this so no doubt another £1 Million will be snaffled surreptitiously from the amazingly generous bank that is the capital programme. How glad the tenants and leaseholders will be to learn that their new windows and roofs are once again being sacrificed - this time for a car park. Actually merely to demolish one.
Worse, it seems, apart from the suggested temporary (that word again) solution to use the cleared site as a ground level car park sparking memories of postwar bomb-site car parks our all singing and all dancing Lambeth Regeneration Team and its expensive cabinet member appear not to have the slightest idea what to do with such a potentially valuable piece of land slap bang in the middle of Brixton.
Plus ca change.
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