Kingston upon Thames Society Committee: June 2014

June's Kingston upon Thames Society Committee Meeting had a lull-before-the-storm feel about it but I still managed to pick up quite a few actions.

Committee Roles

With the recent discussion with members on What Matters to Us? there needed to be some changes to the roles of some of the Committee members as we took on a slightly wider remit rather than just focusing on planning.

A small working party of just three people was set up to come back with suggestions and I was drafted on to this.

Tall buildings

Our Chairman gave feedback on a meeting she had attended recently on the growth of tall buildings in some parts of Central London. This was related to the London's Growing Up! exhibition that I had visited.

We had a short discussion on this, with no particular objective in mind other than to watch this space. I agreed to circulate details of the exhibition to Committee members so that they had the chance to see it before it closed.

Planning our year

Some months ago I had taken the action to propose a timetable for our Townscape Awards that gave sufficient time for full involvement of members and the Committee. When I got around to doing this I went somewhat further and tried to include all of our activities, e.g. Heritage Open Days and our AGM.

The draft that I had circulated had been generally well received apart from some readability issues due to the small font and the use of colours. The key point was hat it had to be readable when printed as some people still do that.

Protected buildings lists

I had circulated the various lists of protect buildings that I had got from RBK, and had chased RBK again for details of other lists.

The Old Post Office (TOPO)

Somehow TOPO had got some funding from RBK for a leaflet on their proposed community use of this protected building which as part of the large Ashdown Road redevelopment area. It was unclear how the new owners of the site felt about the proposal.

Crossrail 2

Crossrail 2 had recently issued a revised consultation notice. From the first consultation they seemed to favour the extended route that took in Kingston and the revised options being considered this time were on northern sections of the route.

Crossrail 2 would probably only be a slight improvement for Kingston but would be a significant improvement for some other areas. When other large rail schemes are considered, such as the recent extension of London Overground and the Thameslink Programme, then Kingston looks more isolated.