Cavendish Square

If you missed it the public meeting re Cavendish square was on Tuesday. I was late as I had governors first but I'll fill you in as best as I can.

The two main issues were unsurprisingly anti-social behaviour around and on the Square and parking.
Annoyingly the person would was in charge of the parking situation was not there :roll: So there was little info able to be given.

The big news in that Stage 3 may not be happening as we thought it would, here is a reply I had to a recent question on that -
"You are correct in saying that there is some doubt now whether the final phase (Phase 3) of the new shopping centre will be carried out, at least in the original expected timescale.

The Development Agreement with Leehampton requires Phase 3 to have commenced within 6 months of the completion of Phase 2, currently programmed for July / August. Leehampton's funding arrangement with their banker / funder requires Phase 3 to be 70% pre-let (at a minimum rental level) before the funder will release funding for the Phase. Hence for Phase 3 to take place those pre-lets would have to be in place in time to start on site by December 08 / January 09.

These requirements of the funder are not unusual, as funders would not
consider lending on speculative developments without the borrower having the security of rental income to pay back the loan, unless perhaps they were in prime locations where finding suitable tenants was not a concern (which does not apply here of course).

Although Leehampton have been trying to secure pre-lets they have had no
success to date, although they remain optimistic that once the new Co-Op
supermarket opens they may have more chance (although it has to be said that the continuing anti-social behaviour and vandalism in and around the new development is most disappointing and is not helping to attract new
occupiers. It seriously detracts from the prime aim of the regeneration
scheme which was to provide a real "lift" to the area).

The recent market uncertainty and the "credit crunch" however has come at a particularly bad time, and there is of course a real possibility that the funder's pre-letting criteria will not be achieved. In these circumstances the developer is considering undertaking the Phase 3 demolitions (the existing Co-Op unit and the Cock Robin pub) and resurfacing the area, and then leaving site. If the pre-lets are still not achieved the developer would come back in January / February 2009 and complete the Mall and covered walkway, although the building of the Phase 3 units would remain in doubt, until at least the funding requirements were satisfied

There were some concerns that without the new shops, there would be no covered mall but these appear to be unfounded. Likewise we are assured that there will be CCTV, and there is also plans afoot to bring in CCTV with a camera placed on the post near the church, this would be helpful. Everyone is working hard to see things happen ASAP.

Meanwhile some youths were caught grafitting (not sure how to spell that :-/ ) when the shops used their radios to communicate with each other and the Police, good to see action is being taken. We are encouraged to continue reporting all incidents however small and however frustrated we get that things don't appear to change. The number of incidents matters when resources are allocated. I will continune to work with the Police and the team in SBC to see things improve as they have done at Welcombe Stores.

There was a bit of a row when Cllr Cherry your new Tory Councillor explained how he had secured youth services to occupy Reuben George (news to me but then if your not in with the Tories you don't hear much) some had concerns about that, but more had concerns when hew said how he'd arranged for wardens to ticket bad parking around the Square and those who park illegally on the road but on the grass would be OK. Interesting :?:

Elswhere I've been busy catching up on casework, following up longstanding issues which really frustrate me, and it's my daughters prom (how expensive are these ) so she's been keeping me busy sewing on bits to her dress, & taking her to have her eye brows waxed - I didn't even know they did that, isn't a form of torture