Camden Council parks department is holding a community workshop this month to explore “ideas and priorities for improvements” to Crabtree Fields public open space.

Since Camden parks department closed the children’s playground at Crabtree Fields in October 2021 it has been considering a wholesale refurbishment of the site. In the summer this year it held meetings with residents before announcing it would appoint landscape architects to redesign the park.

Public opinion differs greatly on how the park should look. Many favour improving greenery, biodiversity and wildflowers; some want a more formal garden neatly laid out; while a significant number of local residents desire a less shady and more sparsely planted total redesign of the park in the belief that it would stem the abuse and nuisance from some park users.

Almost everyone wants the council to spend more money to increase maintenance and rubbish removal from the park, and have more frequent warden and police patrols — something the council is reluctant to do because it says it doesn’t have the money.

But it has found the money to redesign the park.

Many people now fear it could end up looking like Whitfield Gardens and Alfred Place Gardens, which have very little in the way of greenery.

Crabtree Fields is a nesting site for a variety of small birds, and bats can be seen flying overhead after sunset. Its greenery and habitat addresses climate change and the biodiversity crisis.

In response to the initial views Camden has carried out further discussions with visitors to Crabtree Fields through an online survey and face-to-face events in the park.

“These interactions have highlighted the community’s key priorities for Crabtree Fields,” says Camden.

“We are now keen to further understand these priorities, and work towards building consensus across the community, to help improve Crabtree Fields.”

Crabtree Fields – Community Workshop Invitation. 6.30-8.30pm Wednesday 15 November 2023, at Fitzrovia Community Centre, 2 Foley Street, London W1W 6DL. This workshop will have limited space and participants are required to register in advance. For an invitation email: [email protected]

https://fitzrovianews.com/2023/11/03/community-workshop-to-thrash-out-ideas-on-the-future-of-crabtree-fields/

#CamdenCouncil #CrabtreeFields #publicConsultations #publicOpenSpace

A notice put up in the summer at Crabtree Fields public open space tells the public to report ASB by email. Photo: Fitzrovia News.

Camden Council has disabled its Community Safety email inbox mere weeks after putting up posters at Crabtree Fields open space directing the public to use the email address. It now asks its “customers” to use a “more reliable” system… which crashed on Friday morning.

In an email on 22 September to some residents and community groups Camden Parks wrote to say that they had received “an update” from their colleagues in Community Safety giving them four days’ notice of a change to the communication system.

“Community Safety is the latest service to be adapting to Contact Camden becoming our main access point for residents to engage better with the service,” wrote the Parks Team.

“In order to streamline this process and ensure a better way of communication, Community Safety will be disabling the mailbox ([email protected]) and the 2915 telephone extension from 26 September 2023 through a managed process.

“This change brings significant benefits to residents. By utilising a more reliable (sic) communication system, we aim to strengthen trust in both the service and the organisation as a whole. We want to assure you that throughout this process, our primary focus has been on improving customer satisfaction and overall experience.

“All calls to 2915 ext will be redirected to the general contact centre (0207 974 4444 –  wait till it tells you to hold then it will take you to a submenu option 6) and reports or queries can be made to community safety via our e-form on the website https://www.camden.gov.uk/community-safety1.”

On Friday morning, 29 September — and only three days after the email inbox was disabled — Camden’s “more reliable” communication system went tits up.

At least Twitter, or whatever it is now called, works… Image: Camden Reliable Communication System.

“We are currently experiencing network issues which are affecting our customer services, phone lines and access to the Camden Account. Please bear with us while we work to fix this,” stated a message on social media at 9.50am.

Access to the council’s planning applications register, public licensing register, and its entire camden.gov.uk/democracy section of its website was also unavailable.

At 12.55pm a member of staff was scrambled to find a working computer to issue another update: “Unfortunately we are still experiencing network issues. While we work to fix this, please only call our customer service in the event of an immediate emergency.”

Six hours later they reported that some semblance of a normal service had returned.

“Thank you for your patience, our systems have now been recovered following an outage earlier today, however, we are still experiencing some disruption with online housing repairs reporting. We apologise for any inconvenience caused while we work to fix this.”

#CamdenCouncil #CrabtreeFields #telecommunications

https://fitzrovianews.com/2023/09/30/camden-council-disables-community-safety-email-inbox-in-favour-of-a-more-reliable-communication-system/

Camden says it has secured funding to redesign Crabtree Fields and wants park users to get in touch. Photo: Fitzrovia News.

Camden Council has announced that it will appoint landscape architects next year to redesign Crabtree Fields public open space — a decision that will likely see the destruction of much of the park’s greenery and habitat for wildlife.

At a meeting in July with police and parks officers to address concerns about the behaviour of some park users and the lack of park maintenance, residents were told that there is no money to step up police and warden patrols or improve cleaning and garden maintenance at the park.

Residents had complained that the park is filthy, some park users were abusive, threatening and playing loud music; and that hedges were not trimmed during the winter, with most of the garden maintenance left to a handful of volunteers to deal with.

Camden parks department had also removed most of the children’s play equipment in October 2021 and was dragging its feet on replacing it leaving local children with only two swings for recreation.

But instead of addressing the concerns raised, parks officers presented residents with an agenda-setting take-it-or-leave-it choice with the only option on the table being a redesign of the park.

Increased maintenance and patrols of the park would only cost a matter of additional thousands of pounds to be spent every year. But implementing a new design would likely run into hundreds of thousands of pounds if it follows what happened at nearby Whitfield Gardens.

Crabtree Fields offers greenery, shade and promotes biodiversity. Photo: Fitzrovia News.

Currently Crabtree Fields park has a variety of small birds — robins, blackbirds, starlings, wrens, tits, and finches — nesting and feeding on insects every year while common pipistrelle bats can be seen flying overhead at dusk in the warmer months.

It is the most biodiverse public open space in the neighbourhood and the work done by the volunteer gardeners to plant native trees and wildflowers accords with Camden Council’s promise to support nature in the borough.

As part of its declaration of a global Ecological Emergency, the council committed to “…produce a new ecological plan for Camden to sustain and improve biodiversity in Camden…” and to encourage “…all citizens, businesses, and organisations or groups in the borough of Camden to join with the Council to…protect and improve biodiversity, in order to avert impending catastrophe.”

If greenery is severely cut back in a redesign of Crabtree Fields, Camden would be reneging on that promise of protecting wildlife habitat.

At a meeting of park users earlier this month opinions differed greatly on how the park should look. Many favoured improving greenery, biodiversity and wildflowers and wanted the council to increase maintenance; some wanted a more formal garden neatly laid out; while a significant number of local residents desired a less shady and more sparsely planted total redesign of the park in the belief that it would stem the abuse and nuisance from some of the public.

Notices have now been put up in the park stating that “Camden Council has secured funding to look at ways of making Crabtree Fields a greener (sic) and more vibrant space for everyone to enjoy”.

Fitzrovia News understands that what is being favoured by Camden is a design more in keeping with Whitfield Gardens and Alfred Place Gardens, which are relative deserts compared with the greenery, wildlife habitat, shade and biodiversity of Crabtree Fields but which have “secure by design” elements.

Park visitors are invited to sign up for updates on the council’s online engagement platform to help shape the design of the park.

Consultation on the design principles will take place this autumn with landscape architects due to be selected and appointed in January 2024.

Camden Council: engagement for Crabtree Fields.

#biodiversity #CamdenCouncil #CrabtreeFields #publicConsultations #publicOpenSpace #wildlife

https://fitzrovianews.com/2023/09/13/camden-to-appoint-landscape-architects-for-crabtree-fields-redesign/

Parents and carers want to know where is the children’s play area? This photo was taken in August 2022 after it had been cleaned by the Friends’s group.

I had an email today from a representative of a number of parents and carers of children who are concerned about why Crabtree Fields public open space on the corner of Colville Place and Whitfield Street has not had a replacement playground built. And why is the park so filthy?

Here’s why.

TL;DR — Camden Parks department are incompetent, waste public money, and their ground maintenance team (which is contracted to idverde) often do more harm than good.

The full answer:

As you may know I co-ordinate the Friends of Crabtree Fields and the bane of my life is having to deal with what seems like the most useless local authority in the UK — the Rotten Borough of Camden.

Crabtree Fields used to have a proper children’s playground.

There was very little wrong with the old play equipment in the park. But useless Camden decreed that it had to be replaced rather than repaired.

I know there was little wrong with it because I obtained an inspection report under the FOI Act. They closed the playground in October 2021. I reported here about it and also the FOI response https://crabtreefields.org.uk/2021/10/31/repairs-to-childrens-playground/

The equipment was removed over the winter of 2021/2022. Camden prefer to rip stuff out and rebuild rather than repair and retrofit. They waste public money by spending huge sums of capital but little on maintenance.

I was told in November 2021 that local people would be involved with designs of the new playground and equipment.

On 15 August 2022 I asked about progress and was told: “There isn’t a programme drafted yet, we are just finalising the current projects and then it will be allocating the next batch to the team.” However, the capital funding was signed off by Cllr Adam Harrision.

On 17 November 2022 I asked: Could we please have an update on the Children’s Playground plans?

No response from Camden parks department.

I would prefer the playground to be installed between September and February — rather than disturbing the wildlife and having to leave it closed off over the warmer months.

Amongst all this about the playground I have had numerous dealings with Camden over the litter picking and general poor state of the park. It is heavily used all day, everyday by hundreds of people mostly working nearby.

It is often in a mess and people just chuck cans, bottles and leftover food around. Last year some cowboy builders used the park to haul a crane through it — trespassing and showing contempt for public property.

Then there are all the other inner city problems that plague the park. I won’t go into that.

I have to constantly nag Camden to clean the park. And it still doesn’t get done properly.

In 2019 part of the pergola fell down. I had to make minor repair myself and put a fence around it because Camden are so useless. It was dangerous. See https://crabtreefields.org.uk/2019/10/14/please-keep-away-from-fenced-off-area-in-crabtree-fields-until-repair-is-complete/

It took nearly three years of me nagging Camden to do a proper repair. It was eventually completed three years later. https://crabtreefields.org.uk/2022/05/15/pergola-repairs-and-spring-wildlife-at-crabtree-fields/

Last winter I asked them to trim the perimeter hedge. On 24 November they sent an untrained and unsupervised labourer who proceeded to cut down an apple tree a resident and I had planted and hacked down several holly and firethorn hedges, and generally wreck the place, Camden-style. It was heartbreaking to see. But unsurprising because Camden are grossly incompetent.

They cannot even manage and maintain a small (1,000 square metre) public open space properly without me having to nag them. And even then they cannot do it.

The Friends group do gardening nearly every Saturday morning of the year. We’ve been planting 60 tree saplings every November. And we’ve had real success with wildflowers blooming this spring and summer.

We have brash piles as a habitat for insects and we have many garden birds including, robin, wren, blackbrid, great tit, goldfinch, greenfinch all nesting and singing in the garden feeding on the insect life. At night you can see bats flying over head. This is real progress.

But Camden Parks seems to be hell bent on destroying the place. They are totally incompetent and beyond rehabilitation. 

Linus Rees is editor of Fitzrovia News and co-ordinates the Friends of Crabtree Fields.

#camden-council #crabtree-fields #public-open-space

https://fitzrovianews.com/2023/06/26/why-is-the-childrens-playground-at-crabtree-fields-still-closed-ill-tell-you-why/