Agenda item

5.1  The chair welcomed the residents and traders in the audience and explained the call-in process.  The process provided the opportunity for discussion with stakeholders, cabinet members and officers in order to review the decision-making process.  The chair emphasised that the committee could not overturn a decision but could recommend that a decision be further considered.

5.2  The chair detailed the reasons for the call-in:

-  Failure to maintain the link between strategy and implementation - the scheme that officers discussed with Peckham Vision stakeholders differed significantly from the scheme presented in the report.  Specifically, stakeholders claimed that the area for development outlined in the report was not the same as the one that had been discussed with officers.

-  Due consultation and the taking of professional advice from officers - Peckham Vision representatives gave evidence at Cabinet that they had had "18 months of unsatisfactory" meetings with officers.  The Director of Regeneration (Steve Platts) acknowledged that there were problems with the report, apologising "for some of the language”.

5.3  The chair invited Councillor Fiona Colley, cabinet member for regeneration & corporate strategy, to introduce the background to the decision.  Councillor Colley explained that the Gateway to Peckham proposal dated back to 2002 and that there were three principal elements to the project:

-  the creation of a new public square which would see the upgrade of the retail units into high quality spaces similar to the ones in the Royal Festival Hall re-development

-  the regeneration of the station including new lifts

-  the regeneration of the courtyard to the rear of the station

5.4  Councillor Colley said that, whilst there was no criticism of the businesses to the rear of the station, some of the light industrial businesses did not necessarily need to be located in a town centre.  What Peckham’s town centre lacked was many leisure and cultural facilities such as bars, restaurants and galleries and there was an opportunity at the rear of the station to create a Peckham specific destination, drawing on the ever growing arts and culture sector in the area and the reputation of some of the existing businesses in the area such as Bar Story and the Sassoon Gallery, which did work well in this location.  She added that while she did not accept that there had been a lack of consultation or a gap between implementation and strategy, she would quite readily accept that there were mistakes in language in the report.  She assured the meeting that the council did not need full vacant possession at the rear or sides of the station but only at the front and that she had recently been to visit the businesses and thought that the council needed to improve communication.

5.5  Councillor Colley explained that the report was slim but in line with the strategic vision for the Gateway to Peckham.  There had been extensive and numerous meetings between Peckham Vision and officers and she was sorry that Peckham Vision found these unsatisfactory as the council had found them useful.  Councillor Colley added that, for various reasons which included commercial confidentially and the negotiations with Network Rail, the council could not share all the information.  She believed that concerns were fundamentally about a misunderstanding that the council had already rectified.

5.6  A member noted that points 25 and 26 of the cabinet report stated that when the community were asked, as part of the consultation on the Peckham & Nunhead Area Action Plan, if they would want to see a square in front of Peckham Rye Station, 86% of respondents were in favour and that there was an extensive consultation and engagement process planned.  The member asked how many respondents were invited to comment.  Councillor Colley did not have these numbers to hand but stated that lots of people were contacting her in support of the scheme and that she felt that the scheme had extensive community backing.  Steve Platts, director of regeneration, reported that consultation plans were in development to engage further with businesses and residents and that the council would be doing broader communication.  He explained that the report focused on delegating those powers to officers.

5.7  A member asked if there had been a delay while agreeing a framework with Network Rail and Councillor Colley agreed that it had taken more time to work through the Network Rail bureaucracy than had been anticipated.

5.8  A member noted that the report talked about “acquiring all the interests” in the area identified in Appendix One, which was the broader area.  Councillor Colley responded that the director of regeneration was authorised to come back to cabinet with a plan for acquiring interests not to go ahead and acquire them and the director of regeneration confirmed that when he came back to cabinet it would be with a more suitable form of wording following cabinet discussion and that there were issues that the council would need to negotiate with Network Rail.  Members noted that a clarification on this would be useful and that the committee would like to see the final form of words used.

5.9  A member commented that the cabinet member had responded to the call-in issues very well and said that he thought the call-in referred to the officer report rather than the cabinet decision.  The chair disagreed and said that the call-in was of the cabinet decision.

5.10  The chair invited Eileen Conn from Peckham Vision to comment.  She opened by saying how shocked Peckham Vision were to find out that the council was seeking secure vacant possession of the whole of Network Rail land from Rye Lane almost to Bellenden Road.  During the cabinet deputation, Peckham Vision were told that this was not the intention, and the decision was revised so that the land assembly strategy had to be reported further to cabinet.  However, she understood that there was still the intention to “acquire all interests” of all that land, and this needed explanation if vacant possession was not needed for all the units affected.

5.11  Eileen Conn reported that Peckham Vision had produced a map to indicate different parts of the site to help to explain their emerging vision and what was expected, compared with what was in the cabinet report (the map was circulated and is appended to the minutes).  She said that Peckham Vision had understood that there would be public consultation and discussion about the urban design of that part of Rye Lane, before decisions on design and final plans were taken.

5.12  Eileen Conn commented that Peckham Vision had been working with the council for many years on the vision but would have expected more consultation on the master plan.  She noted with interest the reports on the later agenda item on Business Mix on Walworth Road, and raised concerns that the final outcome of Peckham Gateway could be more “clone town” as the Network Rail plan assumed a complete makeover of all the arches and buildings on the site compared with the unique independent approach which Peckham was capable of.  Eileen Conn indicated that there were emerging business that with flexible and empathic management could deliver the organic change faster and more cheaply than anything the council and Network Rail could generate.  She said this would complement the physical infrastructure investment and change of the public square and the reconfiguration of the ground floor of the station to connect to the rear.

5.13  Eileen Conn complained that in her view the process to date had been opaque.  The fact that the news of this cabinet report reached Peckham Vision by accident, after the information had reached the public domain, even though Peckham Vision was named in the report as a council partner, indicated that communication and information provision from the council had not been adequate.  Eileen Conn commented that during the last year Peckham Vision had sought but failed to engage in a conceptual discussion of how the strategy could be achieved on the whole site.  She requested clarification of what the partnership with the council entailed and highlighted that Peckham Vision felt that it was essential for there to be a clear written agreement about this.

5.14  Eileen Conn said that it was notable that of all the organised partnership arrangements in the council processes few, if any, seemed to relate to the physical infrastructure policy areas.  She hoped that the committee would recommend that the council looked into this aspect of partnership arrangements and take the Peckham Gateway project as a case example to clarify some of the issues, as well as come to a satisfactory arrangement on the Gateway project itself.  Eileen Conn said that she was the elected representative in the new Community Action Southwark ‘Voice’ arrangements and the wider partnership issue might be able to fit within that umbrella.  She emphasised that Peckham Vision valued working with the officers and she hoped that the call-in process would achieve a collaborative and fruitful relationship with the council, as well as achieve clarity on the issues around the plans for the different parts of the site.

5.15  The chair asked how a better of model of partnership arrangements could be achieved and Eileen Conn emphasised the importance of a written agreement.  The chair suggested that clarity on how the council would work with the community, voluntary and business sector might be helpful, and that there might be useful examples, e.g. Brixton.

5.16  The director of regeneration commented that Peckham Gateway did not have a conceptual design but that the council was about to start engaging with the wider community.  Councillor Colley said that there was a massing plan developed with Network Rail, but that this was commercially sensitive.

5.17  A member cautioned against a more formal partnership relationship and said that that one regeneration initiative spent two years agreeing the terms of reference, however a tenants’ friend arrangement worked well to communicate the regeneration plans.  Councillor Colley emphasised the need for the council to have direct relationships with local business, as well as working through groups such as Peckham Vision.  She reported that over the last eighteen months there had been twenty-two meetings with Peckham Vision.

5.18  The chair commented that nevertheless people remained unhappy.  Councillor Colley commented that there was a limit on how much information the council could share.  While the council would consider a written agreement she was unsure if this would be productive and emphasised the need for the council to make decisions quickly.

5.19  A representative from Peckham Vision remarked that consultation was different from partner to partner and recalled that Peckham Vision was written in as a partner and was described as this in the cabinet report.  She said that this status generated reasonable expectations around information, dialogue and decision-making.  She emphasised that a framework would be helpful.  The representative thought that this would be of enormous help and suggested that CAS could help to develop this.

5.20  Councillor Colley said that the council could work on this but indicated that this would not go as far as the Brixton Windmill partnership agreement which was a very different type of project.  A member of the committee commented that bureaucracy could delay a dynamic process, that the council should not be giving a veto to the community and emphaised that the people who ran there council were democratically elected.

5.21  A second member appreciated that communication from the council could be better and noted that Peckham Vision were asking for meaningful engagement.  He suggested that this could be a log of achievements.  Another member said that the partnership work with Creation Trust on the Aylesbury Estate had undertaken some very successful work and agreed that regeneration processes needed to be deft and fast and that there should be nothing too bureaucratic.

5.22  A member commented that the committee also needed to talk about involving the wider Peckham area and the more diverse elements of the community.  Members agreed that this was a key issue.

5.23  A member asked if there was core agreement on the development of the front of the station and whether the key issues of difference might be more around land use at the rear of the station.  He referred to the Peckham Vision map and asked if Peckham Vision thought it was likely that there would be problems around use of the land marked green and yellow on the map.  Eileen Conn responded that Peckham Vision thought there was agreement around the yellow area, but that the green area and the pink area had not been discussed.  She emphasised that this was exactly the conceptual discussion that Peckham Vision had not been able to have.  Peckham Vision had local Information and ideas that it would like to feed into the regeneration process.  Three businesses that sounded very interesting had indicated an interest in the pink area and a micro brewery could possibly occupy the area marked in green.

5.24  A member asked if the areas marked in blue would be affected by the creation of the square.  Eileen Conn thought this was the base but Peckham Vision was not an expert on this.  Councillor Colley commented that some of the area marked in pink might also need to be integrated into the physical regeneration.  She explained that the situation for the front units was complex as these involved leases that the council needed to acquire, however units operating in the area marked in green were more straightforward as these units were rented.

5.25  Councillor Colley stressed the importance of acknowledging that Peckham Vision and the council were not the only partners.  The chair suggested that the cabinet look at successful partnership models.

5.26  A member commented that Creation Trust was democratic in its terms of reference and was not short of information, which was crucial.  He reported that sometimes the partnership agreed to disagree, however there were lots of stakeholders and community groups who did communicate through the process.  Ultimately the council took decisions and residents could disagree via the ballot box.  Councillor Colley commented that Creation Trust was a very different body to Peckham Vision – a charity with a very formal governance structure to ensure representativeness, employing members of staff to deliver services and with a closely monitored funding agreement with the council.  She did not think that the council could impose the Creation Trust model on Peckham Vision which was a more informal network seeking to work collaboratively with the council.  A member noted that this partnership model brought in faith groups and brought everybody round the table.

RESOLVED:

1.  That the decision not be referred back to cabinet.

2.  That the cabinet should investigate models of partnership arrangements which are as dynamic as possible while involving the widest range of stakeholders and community groups.

3.  That the cabinet clarifies as soon as possible the extent of the area in which the acquisition of all interests is required.

4.  That the cabinet member and officers ensure that the outcomes of involvement activities for this project are recorded, especially those with partners, alongside logistical information on the number of meetings and consultation documents distributed and stakeholders consulted, to ensure meaningful and measurable engagement.