The Character of Ham and Petersham

The Ham and Petersham Neighbourhood Forum (H+PNF) is a neighbourhood forum (as defined in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990) and so will have a big impact on the area that I live and so I am very interested in what it is doing.

What it is doing now is holding a number of consultation workshops with residents on various aspects of the neighbourhood plan that the Forum will produce and then oversee its implementation. I have been to all of the sessions so far and have submitted several comments at each of them.

The next consultation is on the Character and Heritage and heritage of the area. I was asked to produce a poster showing what I liked about the area to prompt some ideas. They asked me because of my Ham Photos blog in which I have been documenting the area for the last nine years through a collection of photographs that now numbers over 2,000.

It took a little while to come up with a format that I liked but once that was done it was a simple matter to find the 16 photos required to tell my story. I am quite pleased with the final result.

It occurred to me once I had done this poster that it very much focused on open spaces and said little about the buildings, so I did another poster of just that and they are going to use that one too as a reminder to people of the variety that there is locally.

This one was very quick to do as I could reuse the format from the first poster and the only challenge was deciding which 20 buildings to choose.

The top row are some of the many grand lodges and manors in the area, dating back to when kings hunted in Richmond Park. The second row shows some of the estate-like development in the area, including the standard 3-bed brick built social housing, the iconic Parkley's development and the Wates Estate. The third row shows some of the more exotic new buildings and the final row shows some of the old cottages that are littered across the area.

Even with 20 pictures there was much that I had to leave out but I think I met my personal objectives of showing the variety that exists and of covering the whole area. I hope that the people at the consultation workshop like it too. I will find out on Wednesday 13 April!

Ham and Petersham Neighbourhood Forum: Sustainability workshop

The third Ham and Petersham Neighbourhood Forum Drop In Draft Policy Workshop was on Sustainability and asked residents for their views on issues relating to energy and water.

In some ways this was a difficult subject to cover because not many people are against sustainability and those that are have a problem making a convincing argument for that viewpoint. Consequently I spent most of the hour posting thumbs-up stickers on the questionnaires though I did find a couple of points to argue against.

The first table considered domestic energy. The obvious proposal was that the Neighbourhood Plan should have policies that demand local generation, e.g. solar panels, and strong measures to control energy loss, e.g. insulation. Obviously I agreed with all that.

There were more controversial policies to retrofit these standards on to existing buildings and I agreed with those too.

Drainage was the next issue and there were several suggestions for ways that rain water could be held or slowed down rather than being allowed to run straight into drains. These include things like water butts and permeable hard surfaces and I agreed with all those suggestions too.

Flooding was the final topic and this time I had something to disagree with. I supported all the ideas to let Ham Lands flood and to look at ways at introducing vibrant wetlands while doing so but I disagreed with the suggestions that dry routes should be built through the flooded areas. There already are dry routes, e.g. along Riverside Drive, and I saw no need to build more. If the tow path is flooded then either take another route or wear wellies. Flooding is one of the things that I like about Ham, it is an attraction to promote not a problem to solve.

My final comment is on what was missing from the debate. We had micro and macro discussions on water but energy was only considered at the micro level, e.g. what individual houses could do. We are (hopefully) getting a small hydro-electric generator at Teddington Weir and I would like the Forum to consider other local generation schemes, such as managing Ham Common Woods for biomass or using local waste to feed anaerobic digestion.

Ham and Petersham Neighbourhood Forum: Opportunity Areas workshop

The second Ham and Petersham Neighbourhood Forum Drop In Draft Policy Workshop was on Opportunity Areas and asked residents for their views on issues relating new development.

The questions posed got to the heart of what defines Ham and, unsurprisingly, I had lots of comments to make on various forms provided for that purpose.

I said that I think that Ham Lands should remain sacrosanct with, just possibly, some minor exceptions for small sensitive buildings on the edges, such as a sports pavilion on St George's Field.

On some of the bigger potential sites, e.g. Cassel Hospital and St Michael's Convent, I was prepared to be more adventurous that most people. These are prominent brick-built buildings facing onto Ham Common with lots of open space behind them and there is an obvious temptation to try and leave things much as they are but I would be willing to see striking modern buildings take their place (apart from the section of Cassel that is listed) and to have more building behind them, subject to sufficient provision being made for wildlife habitats and corridors.

There are many examples of modern buildings sitting alongside old ones and I would much rather see a sensational new building that a bland old one or, even worse, a bland new one trying to look like an old one. We have enough of those on Ham Common already. Similarly, while the large gardens are attractive, or have the potential to be so, they cannot be seen from the road and are rarely open to the public. Ham has accepted and come to love new buildings in the past and can do so again.

I was was happy to support the suggestion of more social housing and would like this to look attractive and modern too. A display board showed some examples of what could be achieved.

Irrespective of the type of housing I wanted the character of the area maintained and that means good landscaping in the spaces between the buildings and lots of paths to make the area permeable. There are a couple of land-locked areas in Ham and I find these deeply frustrating.

Another area where I disagreed to some extent on the proposals was on building heights. This was related to the many small sites, often housing disused garages today, where it was suggested that low-rise buildings would be appropriate. I made that comment that mid-rise, say five storey, could also be suitable. There are taller buildings around, there is nothing wrong with a little height per se and we need to make the best use of the spaces that are available otherwise the pressure will be there to intrude into some of the green spaces.

I also wanted our existing good buildings recognised and protected and that includes some examples from the 20th Century, such as 59 Ham Street, and not just the historical hunting lodges.

Ham and Petersham Neighbourhood Forum: Travel and Streets workshop

The first Ham and Petersham Neighbourhood Forum Drop In Draft Policy Workshop was on Travel and Streets and asked residents for their views on issues relating to cars, public transport, cycling and walking.

These are topics that I have strong opinions on and I made sure that they were known. Other views were expressed that opposed mine and most of these seemed to be from people who used cars complaining that other people were using cars and so were filling up the roads and parking spaces. I very rarely drive and had no sympathy with that view.

As we were talking about streets and paths there were lots of maps. I love maps.

I'll start with the topic that everybody seemed to agree with. The Thames rolls in a large S around Ham and Petersham and there is a large gap between the footbridge at Teddington Lock and the road bridge at Richmond. There was a strong consensus that we needed another foot/cycle bridge and that the obvious place to put this was somewhere near the end of Ham Street. A bridge there would open up Twickenham and beyond to those on the Ham side and give those on the Twickenham side easy access to the wild areas of Ham Lands and Richmond Park.

I was generally supportive of the plans for improving the streets for walkers but with two exceptions. I though that they were somewhat limited in scope, e.g. walk to school, and I was against any idea of "improving" the tow path to make it passable during flooding.

I love walking through Ham and exploring the little alleyways and twittens as I do so. I suspect that nobody has explored them as much as I have. This knowledge needs to be shared so that other people can make use of these routes. One of the things that I am doing is updating Open Street Map which is a better map than most for showing paths (Google is useless) but still has some significant gaps.

Once I have got the map right I want to work with the Forum on maintaining and publicising these routes. I think that we can do a lot of simple things quickly and easily which would all make a noticeable difference.

All my walking has also made me aware of places where the paths disappear or are unsuitable. For example, the route down Ham Street to the river and Ham House means taking to the road for about 50m. This is one of the main routes that should be made more pedestrian friendly, especially if a bridge is to be built at the end of the road.

I have spent many an happy hour on the tow path while it is flooding, often through deliberate planning and sometimes by accident. The rising and falling tide is a fascinating thing to watch, even if it means standing on a bench to do so. The tide and associated flooding is a nice feature of the area and I am against any plans to raise it or to make it more substantial during the short high tides.

One of Ham's problems is easy to see from the map above, the only way in or out of the area by road means using the main Kingston to Richmond Road that has a significant bottleneck as it goes through Petersham (turning sharply past the house where Tommy Steele used to live). We are not going to solve that problem so the only answer is to discourage car use and, preferably, take a few off the road.

Personally I would make it a one-way road, except for buses, and let cars find other routes, or have them left behind in the garage while the owner takes a bus or walks. We should assume that cars are a bad idea whose day has gone and plan for a future without them.