Market Tenants Association Holds Public Meeting Tonight
Concerns over market plans to be aired at St Stephen's Church
Shepherds Bush Market Tenants Association (SBMTA) is holding a public meeting tonight, Monday October 25 at St Stephen's church hall to demonstrate its concerns and those of traders, customers and residents about Council plans to redevelop the market.
Speakers will include the chairman of the association, James Horada, and Brackenbury Residents Association member Peter Wheeler of Cressy Court, SBMTA vice-chairman.
The developer, Orion of office block fame, has also been invited to speak. The meeting begins at 6pm at St Stephen's church hall, Coverdale Rd, W12 (opposite the police station).
There is also a full council meeting taking place at Fulham Town Hall, opposite Fulham Broadway shopping centre and tube station, on Wednesday October 27 at 7.pm where regeneration plans for the market will be discussed.
The public are admitted to this meeting and resident of Richford St and BRA member Coll McDonnell is down to ask a question about 30-52 Goldhawk Rd.
As we reported earlier, Coll is organising a campaign to Save 30-52 Goldhawk Road from demolition and has started a Facebook site against Council plans to demolish the Victorian shops at the entrance to the market.
As Coll said on our forum: " At the moment this row of shops does not look much. (This is in part due to the fact that late last century Hammersmith and Fulham enforced the removal of cornicing on "health and safety grounds".)
" But the reality is this terrace was built in the early to mid nineteenth century and they are good examples of Victorian shops. The fact that they have fallen on hard times is no reason to have them demolished. Rather this should be seen as an opportunity to have them restored to their former charm. "
Almost 400 people have now joined the campaign, whose page on Facebook is at Save 30 - 52 Goldhawk Road from Demolition.
The council recently claimed that redevelopment of the market is now a step closer with a developer, Orion Shepherds Bush Limited coming forward to tell Hammersmith and Fulham council that they are potentially interested in regenerating the area.
A consultation with residents - the second this year - is underway on the council’s overall vision of the market, known as a "planning and regeneration brief". The brief proposes that the Transport for London-owned market would be enlarged to take in a former laundry site on Pennard Road, along with land currently owned by Broadway Centre and Peabody Trust and redeveloped to include new homes and public spaces.
At the council meeting on Wednesday, l members will decide whether to adopt the updated planning brief, following the latest public consultation. A full copy of the council’s draft planning and regeneration brief can be viewed here
Coll says: " It would be wonderful to have as many people as possible at the council meeting."
Here is the question Coll wiill be asking on Wednesday evening:
" Given the very strong local distress over the proposed demolition of 30-52 Goldhawk Road – expressed in the many emails to the council, our Facebook page with over 300 members, petitions and letters; the concern expressed by local groups such as the Hammersmith Society and Hammersmith and Fulham Historic Buildings Group; the fact that these shops are of historic significance being very probably the earliest shops to be built on the road; that all the shop keepers are keen to stay; and that these shops provide significant social and economic benefits from the well loved Pie and Mash shop to the important fabric shops; and finally the real danger that if we move these shops from their current context we could crush the life and community that presently thrives along the Goldhawk Road; would the council consider – in the light of all this – the possibility of the restoration rather than the demolition of this terrace as part of the regeneration of Shepherd's Bush market?"
October 25, 2010
