Help me stop this concrete canyon

The Conservatives have just announced they're tearing up carefully consulted-upon plans to regenerate Roehampton.

After more than a year and a half of surveys and public meetings, the Council brought in new consultants who, without any evidence, have said the old plans for the top end of Danebury Avenue are unworkable. What they propose in their place is:

• Three times as many flats as there are at the moment in what is already the most densely populated part of the borough.


• Not a single one of the *additional* flats will be affordable; and overwhelmingly they're likely to be one-bedroom properties rather than the family homes the area desperately needs. Many of them will also be low quality, over noisy, congested, polluted Roehampton Lane


• Doubling the height of the Danebury Avenue buildings - we are supposed to be impressed that no building will rise "more than six storeys"


• Closing the Alton Youth Club in Dilton Gardens - the "best option" according to the Conservatives


• Concreting over the precious green at the entrance to Danebury Avenue, which the vast majority of residents wanted retained; green open space in this new plan is reduced by three quarters


• Demolishing Allbrook House, despite Allbrook House residents not wanting their homes flattened


• Worsening congestion in Roehampton Lane even further - it's already on the verge of getting dramatically more congested when the huge 400+ home Queen Mary's Place opens soon

The plans as they stand do not have my support and, nor do I believe, will they have the support of Roehampton residents.

As I wrote in my recent post about getting the derelict King's Head pub back into use, I want Roehampton regenerated as much as anyone else, but not at any price. Any ideas for Roehampton must put the existing community first and foremost. The Conservative plans just want to drive Roehampton residents out and bring even more temporary, transient newcomers to the area.

Just imagine how doubling the height of the Danebury Avenue shops, where it can already feel gloomy with just a three-storey block, will feel. It will turn the centre of the area into a dark windswept, canyon. The superstore they propose will massively increase traffic down Danebury Avenue, which can already get pretty congested.

The new community hall and Boys Club will both be crammed into what is now the Right Plaice chip shop: a tiny space and one the chippie doesn't want to leave anyway.

What I think Roehampton needs is a more diverse number of homes to allow generations-old local families to stay local. More affordable homes to replace the hundreds that the Conservatives have sold off. Fewer one-bedroom flats. And much better public transport.

How could the Conservatives have got this so wrong?! These plans are damaging. They'll make Roehampton worse. And they're unworkable. Help me defeat them.