WANDSWORTH COUNCIL'S PLANS FOR TOOTING BECK TRIANGLE

[Emmano6]

Hello local Mums.

I'm sure you've all heard by now that Wandsworth council are planning to put 10-12 all weather, floodlit football pitches on the Tooting Beck Triangle. This would be a commercial enterprise and be open until late in the evening. We would loose 20,000 sq metres of common land!

To do this Wandsworth council are not renewing the lease of our local Waldorf Steiner School of SW London. They have given the school six months notice to re-locate or close down. There are no spaces at local schools for these children.

For further information and to find out what you can do to save your common you can look at these two sites.

www.waldorf-swlondon.org
www.triangleplayground.com

Thanks Emmano6

I have read the links but a bit confused about how much common they intend to use up - are they talking about the whole piece bordered by the 2 train lines and Abbotswood Road

Re the school - they would have known that they had no right of renewal on their lease so should have planned for this possibility

I agree that the common should be saved as a natural enviroment for as many people as possible- although isn't Tooting Common one of the largest areas of green common land in London? I heard that somewhere.
Is there still a one o'clock club at the Triangle? What'll happen to that?
There's an argument that the football pitches are for the whole community- whereas the Steiner school is a small private exclusive religious/ alternative school which serves a few.

They don't seem to have a definite plan for the one o'clock club and the playground

The rent received from the school is pretty tiny so I can see why the council don't want to offer a new lease

Surely the school is a separate issue (although I appreciate they have done a lot of publicity for this) they must have known about the lease, and alternative schooling options are generally poor for everyone in the area. Although I do feel sorry for them didn't they burn down recently so presumably have spent loads on rebuilding? However isn't it only a small bit of land they are loosing?
The football pitches are different, commercial enterprise on common land is poor, loads more traffic, light pollution etc and it would appear the land is being 'given away' for little community gain. My dh wrote to the council about this but got the usual 'non-answer' so we shall see.
I presume Wandsworth council are very chuffed wiht themselves since it is mainly Lambeth residents who will suffr the most from this! (no I'm not cynical!!)

FWIW last time I went to that 1 0clock club I thought it was dreadful but it had been one of the nicest the previous year.

The school are just in portakabins I think

oh poor things keep (sort of ) meaning to wander over and have a look but never getting round to it.

We had a letter through from our local councillors today - apparently the development will just be on the existing playground area and a bit behind it

The Steiner school is accused of misinformation but then reading the other Steiner threads I'm not hugely surprised