Canary Wharf Newsletter 6 - Rotherhithe to CW bridge, Flu clinic & Millharbour planning update

Newsletter No 6 - November 2017
from Councillor Andrew Wood, Canary Wharf ward

Dear all,

Welcome to my sixth newsletter, apologies for the gap since the last one but with the help of my colleague Tom Randall we plan to start a weekly newsletter.

Tomorrow Saturday 25th Nov, Transport for London will be at Alpha Grove Community Centre, E14 8LH (map here) between 11am to 3pm to consult residents on the new Rotherhithe to Canary Wharf bridge/river crossing, they are consulting on three potential bridge crossing points by Canary Riverside, Cascades or Cuba Street. Tom or I will be outside the hall if you want to have a chat about this. TfL will also be at the Canary Wharf underground station, Jubilee line ticket hall, Thursday 30 November 2017, between 8am to 7pm.

More information from TfL here. There is more information below about the bridge based on a leaflet some of you have already got from Tom & I.

Flu Clinic
The Barkantine GP surgery at 121 Westferry Road will be running a drop in flu vaccination session at the Barkantine Practice between 9am and 2.30pm tomorrow Saturday 25th. They will be offering the vaccination to any patients in the at risk cohorts (especially under 65's), pregnant women, & people with long term conditions.

They will also be offering the Vaccine to all 2, 3 & 4 year olds (the vaccine for children is given in form of nasal spay). More information about the flu jab from the NHS is here.

The Barkantine clinic offers a walk in service 8am to 8pm seven days a week for everybody not just people registered at the GP surgery. More details below in the leaflet from the surgery.

Millharbour Meadows Planning Application (see picture below of yellow buildings)
The Meadows planning application is being heard for a 2nd time by Councillors next Thursday. It is the site between Millharbour and Pepper St bridge. It would replace all of the red brick buildings except the one closest to the water and Pepper Saint Ontiod pub (which may have its own separate development).

Unusually it was rejected at the last committee meeting on the 26th October on the grounds of being too tall and dense.

But whenever a planning application is recommended by Council officers and then rejected by Councillors it has to go back for a 2nd vote which will happen next Thursday.

The developer I believe will up the affordable housing % from 35% to 40% and convert one of the new retail units (around 400 sq meters in size) into D1 space which can be used for health or education use. This may change Councillors minds.

Strategic Development Committee Thursday, 30th November, 2017 7.00 p.m at Mulberry Place full details here, it is item 4.1

"Demolition of existing buildings at 49-59 Millharbour, 2- 4 Muirfield Crescent and 23-39 Pepper Street and the comprehensive mixed use redevelopment including two buildings ranging from 26 storeys (90.05m AOD) to 30 storeys (102.3m AOD) in height, comprising 319 residential units (Class C3), 1,708sqm (GIA) of flexible non-residential floor space (Classes A1, A3, A4 and D1), private and communal open spaces, car and cycle parking and associated landscaping and public realm works. "

It would also have a 10 sq meter Police welfare facility i.e. a toilet / rest stop for the police.

New Rotherhithe to Canary Wharf Bridge?

In October 2016 Mayor Sadiq Khan announced that he would build a new cycle and pedestrian bridge between Rotherhithe and Canary Wharf by the year 2020.

There was one slight problem, Transport for London had not yet done any work, nor consulted anybody and a project team was not formed until January of this year. A crossing had been proposed by residents of Rotherhithe and a cycling charity. TfL have now started the formal consultation process on the options and in particular the location of the bridge, the three options are below in green as well as those options rejected for now.

I support in principal a river crossing but have a number of issues with the rush to build a bridge not least that the Mayor has already announced the solution before you have either been consulted or any detailed work on the options. It was announced the same day as the Silvertown road tunnel in order to offset concerns over pollution despite the fact the tunnel was much more advanced. The main concern is that it will be expensive to build and maintain and we cannot be sure that the demand will be there to justify such an expensive investment. We also know from work done by Tower Hamlets Council and the GLA that there is not enough money available to build all of the schools, GP surgeries, playgrounds etc. that are required to support planned growth on the Isle of Dogs, the funding gap is about the same size as the cost of the bridge.

The main justifications for the crossing is to encourage more Londoners to cycle and walk and that the Jubilee line between Canada Water and Canary Wharf can be extremely busy in rush hour. TfL believe that people will walk or cycle this stretch rather than take the Jubilee line.

Some of the issues are;

Visual impact on the river as could be quite bulky
Noise from users as well as the opening mechanism to let ships pass
Number of users can only be estimated for now
Cost and who will pay for it (the bridge would be free to use) – the build cost could between £120 and £180 million with annual operating costs of up to £2.4 million p.a.
The higher the bridge is above the river, the higher the cost and visual impact but the less often is has to open. It will need to stay closed for between 15 and 60 minutes depending on the size of ships passing.
There already is a ferry which runs a fairly frequent service (even if not cheap)

We have proposed to TfL as an interim solution to make the current Hilton Hotel ferry free to use. It can delivered quickly and relatively cheaply. It could be used to calculate the real level of demand especially from pedestrians and could carry cyclists with some adaption.

But we are disappointed that this option has not been included in the consultation. They are consulting on a permanent ferry option which would include buying new boats. But they have to do this anyway for the proposed new Blackwall to Greenwich ferry.

There will be a consultation meeting by TfL at Alpha Grove Community Centre, E14 8LH – Saturday 25th November between 11:00 to 15:00 where they will answer questions.

Either my colleague Tom Randall or I will be attending the consultation event as well, we shall be sitting just outside the main hall. We would be curious to hear what you think about as we know this proposal divides opinions with many passionately against as well as supporters locally. But we believe more work needs to be done looking at all of the options including a ferry or tunnel and that this bridge should only happen if it has public support. You can find more information from TfL online here at:

https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/rivercrossings/rotherhithe-canarywharf/?cid=r2cw-crossing

Newsletter No 6 - November 2017 from Councillor Andrew Wood, Canary Wharf ward

Newsletter No 6 - November 2017
from Councillor Andrew Wood, Canary Wharf ward