The Future of Wimbledon workshops

23 April 2008 WimbledonCivicForum in association with TheWimbledonSociety

Wednesday 23 April 2008 6.30-8.00 pm at St Mark's Church, St Mark's Place SW19

THE FUTURE OF WIMBLEDON

A major public workshop facilitated by the Urban Design Task Force of the Civic Forum looked at the future of the town centre and the village, and launched a campaign for a Creative Plan for Wimbledon to shape it for the future in a way that is planned and well thought through.

Executive summary: A workshop of about 70 people including residents, business and faith communities met to discuss character, green spaces and streets, transportation, civic/community facilities. This is one of a series of workshops - the next in November 2008 - connecting the energy and expertise of people who understand the area with those responsible for governing and spending budgets. Key findings are shown below.

Panellists:
Stephen Hammond MP for Wimbledon and shadow cabinet member for Transport
Councillor Tariq Ahmad - Cabinet member for Environment and Traffic Management - LB Merton
Sue Harris, Head of Street Scene and Waste - LB Merton
Diana Sterck - CEO - Merton Chamber of Commerce
Marcus Beale RIBA - Urban Design Task Force - Wimbledon Civic Forum

Launching the meeting, Marcus Beale introduced himself as an architect whose home town is Wimbledon. Wimbledon has a lot of historic interest and potential. It is a town of contrasting centres, with the town and the village physically isolated from each other, thus not benefiting sufficiently from one from the other. This is why he proposed a cable car. There is too much clutter in Wimbledon, too much traffic. Nor is the town 'green' enough. Tariq Ahmad, a banker by profession, said he was a Womble - Holy Trinity, Park House, Rutlish schools. A big concern as a local councillor is litter. Wimbledon is a hub for schools, commuters and visitors. There has been an increase in night-time cleaning. Two million pounds has been committed to the street scene. Wimbledon Chamber of Commerce CEO Diane Stercrk said that we have a town centre manager funded by LBM and local business. There should be better links with the village. “Going For Gold” is an initiative to put Wimbledon on the map pre-2012 Olympics, for which Wimbledon is a host borough. We have done a competitiveness study funded by LBM. Wimbledon has to compete with Kingston and Croydon who have vast funds. Wimbledon enjoys a sense of community. It has vibrancy. But the station and its forecourt are archaic.

Sue Harris is an officer at LBM which she joined as head of street scene and mangement last November 2007. LBM has £2 million to invest in the street scene in Wimbledon. Their aim is that there should be a lasting legacy from the Olympics. Chair of Wimbledon Town Centre Management Andrew Wakefield maintains a close hands-on interest in all things Wimbledon . He is also chair of Wimbledon Chamber of Commerce and aware of the need to involve all community groups - business, religious and social - in the plans for the town centre. From the floor Wimbledon is unique and need not follow either Kingston or Croydon. Wimbledon used to have an information centre. The Civic Hall was disposed of in 1988 and, despite assurances that a replacement would be seamlessly provided, nothing today has taken its place, hence the P3 and P4 sites enigma. Revised plans for the P3 site ( the large car park behind Morrisons) have been tabled and are a vast improvement on the original. The P4 site (the small car park beside the theatre on The Broadway) has progressively deteriorated into a farce. The so-called Piazza at Morrisons is an example of what not to do with urban open space. Town centre policing and brown field sites were also issues to be considered. Marcus proposed that the main body should split into small groups to thrash out the various interests for 30 minutes or so with a view to each presenting its findings to the floor. He identified the following issues and directed those interested in each to their relevant part of the church. The topics for analysis were as follows:

• Community/Town Centre/Civic issues;
• The character of Wimbledon;
• Trams and cable car;
• Green spaces;
• Pedestrians and streets;
• Tourism;
• Buildings.

Buildings group Summary:
• Wimbledon station is a big, hugely unloved, problem.
• There should be an overall architectural concept for Wimbledon.
• There is not enough good open space. The Piazza at Morrisons and St Mark's Place are mere gestures to sophisticated street life. They are bad examples.
• The village and the town are fundamentally different.
• There is a marked lack of dedicated pedestrian routes. The age-old assumption of pedestrians walking along the main traffic routes is maintained without question.
• Wimbledon is a major arts centre but you wouldn't know it.
• There are far too many restaurants and bars.

Character group Summary:
• Wimbledon's identity is separate to that of Merton.
• The UDP should be enforced.
• Individual shops and markets should be encouraged over national multiples.
• There should be more trees and general greenery.
• Bars and pubs should be better controlled.
• A tourist office should be maintained year long.
• There are far too many coffee shops.
• The cable car notion should be strangled at birth.

Green spaces and streets Summary:
• Densification has ushered in a loss of greenness, Worple Road being a prime example of this.
• Losing amenity space.
• Flooding in the town centre.
• Maximising percentage on development plots.
• There is not enough space for pedestrians and cyclists.
• No linkage between green spaces.
• What exactly is the Piazza supposed to be for?
• The congestion at the bus stops outside Centre Court and Wimbledon Bridge is positively medieval.
• Wimbledon Park could be better managed.
• Clutter and litter is a big stain.

Transportation Summary:
• We don't want to be a Croydon or a Kingston.
• Why do we want to attract people to Wimbledon?
• The station is a mess.
• There is clutter and the drop-off taxi rank is an eyesore.
• Far too many cabs, sometimes queuing down Alexandra Road, chasing fewer and fewer fares.
• There needs to be a radical change to the first image a visitor beholds on emerging from the station. More trees, better signage would enhance the town.
• We are against the flashing 20 mph warning signs in residential areas.
• There are no links between the village and the town.
• The village is a declining shopping area.
• An extension of the park-and-ride employed by the Tournament might be worth considering.
• More should be done to discourage 'rat-running' by through traffic through residential areas.

Community/Town Centre/Civic Issues Summary:
• What is needed is an events, conference and cultural centre. A combined community and arts centre is not what is required to replace the civic hall.
• There is a need for a large hall.
• The saga has continued for too long: first considered for the P3 car park site, next, the P4 site beside the Theatre, now the idea is to amalgamate arts and community groups
• There should be an information centre for Wimbledon
• Key groups such as Wimbledon Guild of Social Welfare and
• Wimbledon College of Art have a lot of potential influence for good.

Stephen Hammond
Since four or five buildings were coming up for demolition and redevelopment we said, look, ... There are the P3 and P4 sites, plus the YMCA and proposals for building over the station ... Public transport is needed at 3 am. Wimbledon is a unique place to live. There is strong demand for more art and leisure. The initial P3 proposal was a monstrosity. The new application is more in keeping. We should have a follow-up meeting in six months' time.

Marcus brought the meeting to a close, endorsing Stephen's call for an October meeting, and referred people to the Civic Forum website for follow-up and further information.

APPENDIX: NOTES FROM INDIVIDUAL WORKSHOPS
Buildings group

The station
It gives a very poor first impression to people arriving in Wimbledon but is also a major missed opportunity in terms of a
building that reacts well socially and architecturally to it's surroundings

Guidelines for architectural style
Focusing on the town centre specifically it was felt that the development of the town centre has been successful. However looking to the future the feeling was that there could be architectural guidelines for future developments. On the positive side these should govern height (low rise preferred), density (no more that existing) , and appearance. Examples of poor developments are Morrisons, Tesco (in the village), and HSBC/Argos/Nat West/ Worple Road crossroads.

Public spaces
There at least two examples of missed opportunities St Mark's Place and the piazza in front of Morrisons. Both could be targeted for simple low cost improvements

Pavements
The fact that pavements/roads are regularly flooded (e.g. in front of HSBC) shows a lack of investment in basic infrastructure. Access to buildings. Both the pedestrian and road layouts need to be reviewed to assess how successful the current configurations are with regard to important or prominent buildings.

Arts
There has been very little attempt to integrate Art into the landscape. Whilst Wimbledon plays home to the University for the Arts (Wimbledon Art College), it does not boast about it's presence or take any artistic lead from the College. The point was made that the College is better recognised in Ealing and Kings Cross!

Buildings
The is not one recognised major modern building in Wimbledon of any architectural merit. This should be addressed.

The tennis

THE FUTURE OF WIMBLEDON - 23 April 2008 - Notes issue 2 - 28 April 2008 - page 5

Whilst this is the source of the most prominent new building in Wimbledon is the All England club doing enough to compensate Wimbledon for the 2 weeks of congestion etc.

In conclusion
Because of the tennis Wimbledon enjoys a world wide reputation unlike Croydon or Kingston. Wimbledon is not Oxford or Cambridge but more akin to Cowes or Ascot ie has a reputation for a world famous annual sporting event that attracts the very richest of the world to spend time in a private setting. It is also transmitted live onto TV sets throughout the world. The challenge is to keep the exclusivity but trade on the popularity. Any development should be focussed to serve one or other of these aims.

Character group
Notes to follow

Green spaces and streets
Notes to follow

Transportation
Notes to follow

Community/Civic Hall and Community Issues
Detailed notes: We first of all discussed the activities the hall would host – should it be a facility for small-scale meetings, children’s parties and the local judo club, or should it be more ambitious, providing space for concerts and conferences? We agreed that no single hall could host both types of activity because of their conflicting needs and differing space requirements. Fran O’Toole then said he was reasonably confident that his centre would soon be redeveloped to provide a 420-seat community hall, along with offices to make the development pay its way. With community facilities apparently about to be provided, we were free to concentrate on a concert hall. Did Wimbledon need one? No, not to survive, but yes, to thrive. We felt that a combined cultural and conference centre would tie in well with the aims of the Wimbledon Town Centre Competitiveness Study (SW19 A Global Brand) in giving the town a character distinct from Kingston and Croydon and in promoting it as a pleasant place to live and do business. It would join with the theatre in creating a more balanced cultural scene, steering it away from an entertainment economy currently too focused on food and drink. We had no idea what the appropriate size would be for such a centre, but perhaps an auditorium seating 600 to 800 plus a couple of conference rooms would be viable and commercially attractive (note that we call it a ‘cultural and conference centre’,
the latter adjective being the crucial commercial justification).

Norman Plastow said the only suitable site for a centre of that size was the Hartfield Road car park, which may be unfortunate if the current plans for the site are given the green light. But last night was all about free thinking, unencumbered by the hard-nosed realities of town planning. Norman Plastow bemoaned how previous administrations allowed property developers (Friends Provident) to ride roughshod over agreements for car parking relating to the P3 site. LBM engaged consultants to justify the concentration of community needs, as well as those of the arts, into the P4 site at the expense of the properties occupied by Wimbledon Community Centre, South Wimbledon Community Centre and Wimbledon Park Hall. Andrew Wakefield said there was an enormous lack of clarity as to what the intentions of LBM were. The trouble was, he said, that none of those centres were commercially viable, they hadn't got the level of activity to support the P4 development as sketched by the consultants. Wimbledon Community Centre in St George's Road was unique in that it received no financial support from LBM and furthermore owned one-third of the site by merit of having contributed one-third of the buying price along with Wimbledon Borough Council and Surrey County Council in the late 1940s/early 1950s. Fran O'Toole, secretary of Wimbledon Community Association, explained that through the relevant LBM cabinet there was now a commitment to redevelop 28 St George's Road which would include as a prerequisite new accommodation for the WCA over two floors. LBM had identified a need for a 260-seat auditorium at this venue. Norman regretted that there would no longer be any prospect of securing a top grade concert hall for Wimbledon. There had been a commitment from the New Queen's Hall Orchestra to base themselves at this 1,800-seat acoustically perfect hall, which would have been the only such in London to date apart from the relatively small Wigmore Hall. It could also have housed a cash generating location for antique fairs, conventions, conferences and large wedding gatherings. Concerts for children, one of the major feathers in the old Civic Hall's cap, would now, regrettably, not be restructurable in Wimbledon.

Marcelle referred to the relatively high water table in the town centre with water running off the common and wondered whether this would make underground usage for maintenance/storage/car parking viable with particular reference to last July's flooding which put St George's Road car park out of commission for five months having inundated landlords' St George's House machine room, knocking out their lifts and most electrical services. The group concluded that, with the separation of community centre use to St George's Road, what the town needed was an events, cultural and conference centre which would service the need to give Wimbledon a name for performance art. It should include a reasonably sized concert hall. Speaking to this in the subsequent group presentation, Fran pointed to the other social/community organisations prevailing in the town. Most notable was the Wimbledon Guild of Social Services which is a national benchmark for the provision of care independently, and in partnership with one's local authority and advisory groups. On the arts front there is the Wimbledon School of Art which, although a bit removed from the town centre, rightly feels itself an integral part of Wimbledon town culture. There is also AFC Wimbledon, founded on Wimbledon Common and in Wimbledon Community Centre, now plying its trade in Kingston, whose followers are passionately Wimbledon.

If you have any comments on these notes please email
info@wimbledoncivicforum.org.uk