TODAY: Peek in (Victoria) Park - update on works

The Facebook Page A Peek at the Park - which appears to be a one-off page for an event - advertises the following event today in Victoria Park between 11am and 3pm

As a number of you will be aware

• very large parts of the park have been fenced off an unavailable for use since the beginning of the year
• both lakes have been drained and the wildlife has been disrupted
• the childen's playgrounds has been out of commission
• a lot of the seats have been removed so there are fewer places to sit down
• there are no signs in the park communicating what is going on and why this is taking so long
• there is no known end date for these works
• nobody ever seems to be doing anything if the park is visited during the week

This has to be one of the slowest and most badly managed regeneration projects there has ever been.  There has also been minimal efforts to minimise the disruption to the public and the impact on their use of the park.  The work could have been done in stages - and it was not.

This is the announcement by the Victoria Park Friends Group (not to be confused with the Victoria Park Action group) which is located in Bristol)

MERA comments in red

Victoria Park Friends Group is pleased to announce an opportunity for the public to see the works in progress in Victoria Park as they near completion.

Richard Desmond Chair of Victoria Park Friends Group said: " The park will be reopening in the Spring but the massive works being undertaken in its biggest refurbishment since its construction has inevitably caused some concern to park users this is an opportunity to see how the park will be returning to use serving the communities of East London that it was built for."

"The park is getting close to being finished come and see it, it's your park!" We make Spring (see previous two paragraphs) six months away - which means that a lot of Victoria Park will have been fenced off  and unavailable for use by local residents for over 12 months)!)

The day will run from 11:00AM until 3:00pm with The Park Rangers leading tours of the new features of the park.

There will be the opportunity to join the Friends Group and sign up to volunteer in the park and live music on the bandstand
11:30-13:00 - Kiniro Saxophone Quartet
13:00-14:30 - The Bethnal Green Bigband

The friends group is looking forward to welcoming the local community to this event and is planing further activities in the coming months.  At the moment it looks as if an awful lot of academics from outside London will be attending and relatively few local people.

Mile End Residents Association were not informed about this event which has only been advertised on the gates of the Park and in East End Life.

There has also been no attempt to make a pdf copy of the notice of this event available for people to place in their windows to help advertise this event.  There's also no photograph of the flyer available for download on the Facebook page.

If you want to be kept informed about the activities of the Friends of Victoria Park - this is their Facebook Page.  They don't have a website.

There is also no website that we know of which provides all the relevant details of:

• approved plans for the park
• project management - progress to date
• consultation with the public
• communication with the public

Maybe they should get a blog!

We understand at least one local councillor (Councillor Peck) has been asking questions of late about why this project is taking so long.

KEEP UPDATED: Subscribe to MERA - Mile End Residents Association Blog by Email