Comments from the Chair of Friends of Spring Gardens:
"Although Spring Gardens is being invested in, it is in practice too far from the new developments in Vauxhall for any of the activities described above."
Just to set the record straight, Spring Gardens is struggling to gain investment of any sort and heavily dependant on 106 monies to advance it's Framework Plan
which only moves slowly and with very small amounts of finance directed to us by Lambeth Council.
Our park is quite literally a one and a half minute walk from Vauxhall Park and in the shadow of some of the tallest buildings in The Vauxhall / Nine Elms proposals
and what Ghislaine (see earlier post from the Oval Partnership) hasn't stated is that these proposals go all the way up to Lambeth Bridge, with Vauxhall City Farm acting as the boundary, which places Spring Gardens slap in the middle of developments between Vauxhall and Lambeth Bridges.
I agree whole heartedly that we all need to fight for more parks and public open spaces in these plans, and our Framework Plan has taken this into account since it's inception five years ago.
We have proposed that the Albert Embankment be reduced to a two lane road (in parts it is eight lanes wide !!) and that the land gained should be incorporated into Spring Gardens on the river side of the park. This would significantly increase our open green space on the embankment side of the Vauxhall Cross Gyratory System.
Indeed the Vauxhall Cross Gyratory System needs to be looked at seriously in these plans and abolished if possible to be replaced by a pedestrian/cycle friendly system that will 'green' the area
and make all our parks more accessible and if possible linked up with 'green' corridors that will encourage better use of parks and less traffic.
Thank you Ghislaine for bringing this issue to the attention of KOV members I support you 100% but please press for improvements for all our parks which
are affected by the Vauxhall/Nine Elms proposal.
