Victorian Weekend and Summer Fete
 Crystal Palace Park, Saturday/Sunday 5/6 July 11am - 6pm


We're looking forward to seeing lots of people at the CPCA stand, so do come over and say 'Hello!' For more details, see our Events page
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Sale of Crystal Palace Parkland for private luxury  flats?  24 June 2008


CPCA chairman John Payne serves objection to the Masterplan on Bromley Council
CPCA chairman John Payne serves objection to the Masterplan on Bromley Council

For two years the London Development Agency maintained the deception that there would be no housing on Crystal Palace Park within their ‘regeneration’ proposals. Despite this, the LDA Masterplan recently submitted to Bromley contains proposals for blocks of 180 private luxury flats on the Grade II* registered, Metropolitan Open Land and Conservation Area protected Crystal Palace Park.

The CPCA formal objection to the LDA Masterplan has been served on Bromley Council and copied to the London Mayor and English Heritage.

To access the objection in full, click here (pdf 530kb).

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Spring 2008 Newsletter available online
 April 2008


CPCA newsletter Spring 2008

Our Spring 2008 newsletter is an important edition that covers the LDA Master plan application for Crystal Palace Park in great detail.

One of the leading articles 'Proposed ‘rebuild’ of the Crystal Palace' is reproduced below, and the whole newsletter is available now to read online or download as a 2MB pdf file.

Read our Spring 2008 newsletter online in Adobe Acrobat format Spring 2008 Newsletter(2MB)

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Proposed ‘rebuild’ of the Crystal Palace
 [From the CPCA Spring 2008 newsletter]


The much-hyped new construction at Crystal Palace Park is not, as claimed, a ‘rebuild’ of the Crystal Palace. It is a vast commercial complex, marketed as a fairy story, but in truth a desecration of public parkland for private profit.

This massive scheme, with its associated infrastructure, would occupy up to 20 acres of Crystal Palace Park hilltop – the area originally earmarked for the abortive multiplex. However, this parody of the Hyde Park Crystal Palace is anything but miniature. At a third the size (although currently quoted as two thirds the size) of the one million square feet Sydenham Crystal Palace, its prime use would be as a 4/5 star hotel, with conference facilities, unspecified leisure/recreation uses and other commercial activities.

Sue Nagle, a former resolute opponent of major built development on the hilltop, but now a leading proponent of the so-called ‘rebuild’, claims in the Norwood Society’s Spring 2008 Review that: “The scheme, estimated at £265 million, will be privately funded” and that: “ Not one penny from the public purse will be necessary!” Ms Nagle modestly claims that the proposed hotel, recreation and leisure complex: “is going to be the most prestigious building in the world”.

Another Crystal Palace replica – Homebase, Catford
Another Crystal Palace replica – Homebase, Catford

As a blatantly commercial venture, one would not expect it to receive benefit from the public purse, but with breathtaking arrogance Ms Nagle calls upon Bromley Council to commit valuable land, they hold in trust for their council tax-payers, to enable this commercial speculation.

Corporate investors would not believe their good fortune should such an outrageous strategy be successful. Some might consider the ‘rebuild’ an audacious attempt to railroad-through commercial development, in a pastiche of Paxton’s Crystal Palace, whilst hijacking public land worth millions of pounds.

Visitors to Ms Nagle’s Church Road exhibition were shown a redundant video that featured the 1851 Hyde Park Palace and not the 1854 Sydenham Palace, and may not have realised there is no proposal to rebuild a replica of Paxton’s original Crystal Palace and that they were being asked to support development of a five star hotel with other recreational and leisure facility. Surprisingly, despite claims that “funding is in place”, the architect is unable to provide an updated DVD due to cost restraint, and no planning application supported by Environmental and Transport Impact assessments has been submitted to Bromley.

Blanket opposition to the multiplex revolved around, not just permanent loss of parkland, but also the damaging effect on the surrounding area and roads of a large one-stop commercial development with an insatiable appetite for a procession of service vehicles and cars.

When Bromley granted planning permission for the multiplex they did so in the awareness that an investment of this scale could not be allowed to fail. Accordingly, the applicant was given carte blanche for possible change of use to ensure the continued viability of the development. The same would be true of the proposed Crystal Palace building with its multi-million pound investment.

If for whatever reason, the operation of the proposed 4/5 star hotel-recreation-leisure complex were to become unviable, conversion of the complex to expensive luxury apartments would be a likely outcome.

Worryingly, Mayor Livingstone, Cllr Stephen Carr, Leader of Bromley Council and Cllr Mike Fisher, Leader of Croydon Council, are quoted as supporting the idea despite the absence of a planning application, Environmental Impact Assessment, Traffic Impact Assessments or basic business plan. Such proposal would be contrary to the Mayor’s London Plan and Bromley’s and Croydon’s UDPs, which maintain that protection of Metropolitan Open Land is paramount.

Some might favour a small structure, commemorating Paxton’s original Palace that would provide access and protection to the Subway and the tree-lined ridge, with possible uses that were not overtly commercial. It would, of course, need to respect the Crystal Palace Acts and be ancillary to MOL uses.

Would future generations thank us for allowing yet more depletion of green open space for further commercial exploitation of a public park? What is really needed to enable ‘regeneration’ of the area is the restoration of this once beautiful park – to become again a landmark in its own right.


[Those who wish to see the whole newsletter, click here]

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Objections to LDA application
 22 February 2008


Many people wish to inform Bromley Council that they object to the housing proposals in the LDA’s Masterplan outline planning application for Crystal Palace Park, reference numbers: DC/07/03897/OUT and DC/07/03906/CAC.

The deadline for response to this application is 11th March 2008 according to site notices posted around the Park, however Bromley has agreed to accept late submissions but these might not be included in the Officer’s report to the planning committee members.

The CPCA has produced a standard letter that anyone may use or adapt to incorporate their own comments. Just download the letter, add your own name and address, date, sign and post to:

Bob McQuillan
Acting Chief Planner
London Borough of Bromley
Civic Centre
Stockwell Close, Bromley BR1 3UH

or email to planning@bromley.gov.uk

Cite the reference numbers on all letters or emails. We would be grateful to receive a copy of your objection letter for our reference.

For those who wish to write their own letter we have provided additional grounds for objection, arranged under topics to download or View Here

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LDA Planning Application for Park Masterplan
 January 2008


Just 42 Days to consider and object to 30-year £67.5million ‘Masterplan’

If you are a Bromley resident, immediately local to the Park, you should have been notified by Bromley Council of this application. However, many who care about Crystal Palace Park will have no idea of the huge changes planned for the Park by the London Development Agency. These include the construction of at least 180 private luxury housing units on public parkland and the loss of the Caravan Club. Anyone anywhere can object to this planning application.

The LDA's Masterplan application arrives at Bromley Civic Centre Bromley’s statutory time limit for making objection to this application is inconsistent and confusing. Although Bromley officers have extended the statutory 21 days to 42 days, the public notices in the South London Press of 1st February (see these links: Outline and CAC & LBC) give 21 days, while the flimsily attached notices around the Park state 11th March for the Outline application and an illegible date for the Conservation Area Consent and Listed Building Consent applications.

The CPCA is pressing for an extension to the deadline as the £67.5 million ‘Masterplan’ application runs to many thousands of pages and is the largest that Bromley has ever received.

The application, all 5½ feet of it, as it arrived at Bromley Civic Centre - 2nd November 2007

A statutory requirement is that notices are posted adjacent to the area of a planning application. As of 30th January no such notices had been posted around Crystal Palace Park.

There are two methods of viewing the three applications and supporting material; either visit the planning department at Bromley Civic Centre and ask to see the documents, or open the documents online at the LDA’s website www.crystalpalacepark.net home page and click on ‘here’ in the top right green box. This takes you to ‘Planning Applications and Supporting Documentation’ and links to the following application references:

07/03897/OUT
07/03906/CAC
07/03907/LBC
Supporting documentation

NB: It is important to note that the only way the documents can be viewed is by downloading and saving them with different file names to your computer. It is not possible to view them directly online which will be a difficulty for those using public internet services. We have pointed this out to both Bromley and the LDA but no action has been taken.

The Bromley website is much harder to navigate and does not include critical ‘Supporting Documentation’ such as the ‘Business Case, ‘Cost Plan’ and the ‘Management and Maintenance Plan’. On both sites there are a number of files that do not open despite the CPCA bringing this to the attention of Bromley and the LDA.

2 out of 3 notices at the Triangle Gate entrance
The flimsily attached notices around the Park

The CPCA is resolutely opposed to the building of housing on the Park and we would urge that you pay particular attention to the housing proposals for Rockhills and Sydenham Gate. The applications’ illustrations, although ‘outline’ at this stage, give a good indication of size, massing, general design and impact of the housing developments and this is the time to object to the principle of selling parkland for housing or commercial development, although a later ‘full’ application might show amendments.

The LDA are attempting to demonstrate to Bromley ‘very special circumstances’ to allow controversial development on Metropolitan Open Land/Grade II* registered parkland.

To make objection to this or any other aspect of the masterplan, write to:

Bob McQuillan
Acting Chief Planner
Bromley Council
Civic Centre
Stockwell Close
Bromley BR1 3UH

Bromley expect the application to go before a planning committee at the end of September 2008.

If you need further help or advice, please contact the CPCA. Don’t be put off by the statement in bold at the top of each planning application that you can’t object.

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For older news, please see our Archive page

 Links


They want your park
The CPCA has received this photograph and although we do not condone the defacing of notices, in this instance, whoever altered the word POD! to PARK may have a valid point!