HISTORY & BACKGROUND
A small core team of local residents, coordinated by resident Eileen Conn, is leading the Peckham Vision work to stimulate and nurture the ideas and to link local people’s enthusiasm into the whole process effectively in new ways. This is supported by an email list of over 2500 local people that has been developed over the last 10 years, and now also Facebook, twitter and blog
. PV works in close liaison with anyone else with interest in Peckham town centre, including especially Peckham enterprises, Peckham voluntary sector, the Council and the railway companies. Peckham Vision began in 2006 during the campaign, with the Peckham Society, to raise awareness of the potential of the Bussey building and the Copeland industrial site before plans to demolish them for a tram depot had gone too far. Before that the Bellenden Residents’ Group, and then the Rye Lane & Station Action Group, through the same residents, had been campaigning to improve the current conditions in Rye Lane and Peckham Rye station. In 2007, the Southwark Rail Users Group (SRUG) was set up to campaign for better local rail services. These campaign streams converged with a vision for an integrated town centre. This produced a draft master plan for the way the large sites on both sides of the central part of Rye Lane could flourish, and complement each other in commerce and function, and transform the nature and experience of that part of the town centre. These ideas were fed into the Council consultations on the PNAAP (Peckham & Nunhead Area Action Plan). In 2008, the work gave rise to the first stages in the resident-led restoration of the Old Waiting Room in the station, and in 2009 to the emergence of the Peckham Town Centre Forum for deeper and continuing discussion to seek improvements and encourage collaboration. In 2011, the Council used the work already done to promote these ideas for the station to secure £5m from the GLA to add to its own £5m funding for improvements including the restoration of the station square. The Council also supported and adapted Peckham Vision’s proposal for seeking Heritage Lottery funding for restoration of key historic town centre buildings, and in 2012 a proposal for Peckham to be a (Government) Portas pilot for Town Team working. Now in 2012 there are signs that the development of the town centre can integrate past, present and future, and that a cross sector town team of all partners to carry it forward for the benefit of wider Peckham may be emerging. The challenge is to devise new ways for tapping into the enthusiasm, energy and good will of local people to make a real contribution to the work, and to find ways to create new and genuine collaboration between the community who live and work here, and the public agencies whose role is to provide public services. More detailed information about two major historic buildings that have been at the heart of the Peckham Vision work in its early years - Peckham Rye station and the Bussey building - can be seen here:
http://www.facebook.com/PeckhamRyeStation
http://www.facebook.com/TheBusseyBuilding
