Attended the meeting at Merton Vision last night. There were reps from TFL, the developers, Siobhan McDonagh (MP for Mitcham and Morden), and merton council and local councillors.
It was very full meeting with people on the stairs, at least 50 people in the room which just shows the depth of interest in the tower and the plans for redevelopment.
The meeting started off with a brief history of the building and recent developments, such as the attempts at finding suitable cladding. Because construction is now very much on course in london finding builders has been a problem as there was no one willing to take on the work, it is an 18mth project now, glass cladding is going to go up. Next week the concrete guys go in. scaffolding should start to appear after xmas. Windows will be cut in and in late summer the fit out starts. apparently they are ready to go.
RLB are the project managers. the building is at risk from progressive collapse. This means that remedial work has to be done first. The plan is the block will be private rental sector (PRS).
1 and 2 bed flats, there will be a concierge service on the ground floor. The whole building will be clad in white. 150 units are going to go in. There wil be a cafe bar on ground floor and a supermarket.
No parking at the first phase, second phase will have disabled parking and no access to controlled parking zones.
An extra two floors are going on the top. the northern line is being upgraded to cope with extra customers anyway.
There will also be bike racks with personal bike locks in 18 months people will be living there they say.
This was followed by some workshops in the meeting, the plaza, piazza, Baltic close, riverside outside Sainsburys. Further workshops are planned to be held in the library.
The meeting then reported back on the breakout groups
The area around the Istanbul could be developed too
Heritage lottery funding would be nice to clear up the area around the tower, trees are a popular idea, there was a very strong preference for Waitrose not Iceland
Sainsburys has a drop in session soon
5th december in Donald Hope 4-7pm
Coffee in the Wood 4-7pm also 5th december