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Mighty Hoopla, Cross The Tracks, Wide Awake & City Splash festivals, Brockwell Park - discussion

You've changed your tune. Normally you're all over private enterprise exploiting neighbourhoods in the name of personal gain.
Not at all. I think the Hondo Tower would have made central Brixton better. I didn't consider it to be exploitation. I think the Pokeman Go festival makes Brockwell Park worse.

For me the core issue is that the parks department is out of control, commercialising the park to raise more and more money to further commercialise the park. It's a downward spiral. If I were in charge, the parks department would be half the size it is at the moment. They'd mow the grass and clean the toilets and that would be about it. (I'm pro-small government, in case you hadn't guessed.)

People in local government often get paid according to how many people they supervise, so there's no incentive for any manager to shrink their own department. What's needed is bold political leadership.
 
Not at all. I think the Hondo Tower would have made central Brixton better.
Happily the vast amount of local residents didn't agree with you, neither did Historic England, the Victorian Society, the Brixton Society, and the local MP. Even Hondo's own biased consultation found nearly three quarters of locals o[posed to the scheme.

All of which rather suggests you're in no position to tell anyone what will make Brixton 'better.'

Did you go to Brockwell park during the Pokémon event?
 
Happily the vast amount of local residents didn't agree with you, neither did Historic England, the Victorian Society, the Brixton Society, and the local MP. Even Hondo's own biased consultation found nearly three quarters of locals o[posed to the scheme.

All of which rather suggests you're in no position to tell anyone what will make Brixton 'better.'

Did you go to Brockwell park during the Pokémon event?
I'm just someone on the internet expressing a view. Goodness me, you are tetchy.
 
Not at all. I think the Hondo Tower would have made central Brixton better. I didn't consider it to be exploitation. I think the Pokeman Go festival makes Brockwell Park worse.

For me the core issue is that the parks department is out of control, commercialising the park to raise more and more money to further commercialise the park. It's a downward spiral. If I were in charge, the parks department would be half the size it is at the moment. They'd mow the grass and clean the toilets and that would be about it. (I'm pro-small government, in case you hadn't guessed.)

People in local government often get paid according to how many people they supervise, so there's no incentive for any manager to shrink their own department. What's needed is bold political leadership.

You are talking about making people redundant is this post. ie taking away peoples means of making a living.

Ive seen your sort in private business. Your like the new CEO who gets the finance department/ human resources to scrutinise what people are doing. Putting the shits up them in passive aggressive way and making them stressed. See where any money can be "saved".

Cut staff and make the rest work harder. That is what your saying.

For all the faults of Lambeth my experience of private enterprise management is that it can be worse. The style of management your advocating is straight out of the free marketers handbook.
 
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33 heavily polarised responses to the FOBP statement on Buzz!

Was this one intentionally ironic :D

What horrible NIMBYs there must be to stop people meeting up in real life not wasting away behind screens?
 
Personally I found it pretty amusing to see a young guy wandering around dressed as a snorlax. Added to the gaity of the nation/park
 
On parks the work force is so depleted over the years that its up to volunteers to look after parks. As in the case of my local Loughborough park.

This isn't good.
Anyone who thinks the parks department could be cut further must be mad. Nearly all the activities to manage parks has been cut and/or essentially outsourced to friends groups and volunteers. With the exception of the boroughs flagship parks I imagine all they do is cut the grass and empty bins in most parks.

If it wasn't for friends groups or the charities that run some parks they'd be much worse places.
 
Here's how the park looked yesterday afternoon. Pretty minimal damage, really.



In photos: Brockwell Park, two days after the Pokemon festival



In photos: Brockwell Park, two days after the Pokemon festival


In photos: Brockwell Park, two days after the Pokemon festival


In photos: Brockwell Park, two days after the Pokemon festival


 
thought it was hilarious seeing all those people (I thought)/who were older than me walking with their phones in their hands "catching tings", no damage done to the park, and could still let my dogs run around in the usual area
better than the festivals imh(biased)o
 
Here's how the park looked yesterday afternoon. Pretty minimal damage, really.



In photos: Brockwell Park, two days after the Pokemon festival



In photos: Brockwell Park, two days after the Pokemon festival


In photos: Brockwell Park, two days after the Pokemon festival


In photos: Brockwell Park, two days after the Pokemon festival


Local WhatsApp group reckon buzz is in cahoots with Pokémon! Complete overreaction to the whole thing.
 
Lambeth tried to ditch responsibility for parks with the failed Co-operative Parks Programme. Local groups felt shafted by it.

"As the Brockwell Park Community Partners soon found out, once local groups expressed a partial interest in the Co-operative route via a Partnership Park, funding for this option was withdrawn.

The Co-operative Council instead rolled out the line that it’s all or nothing – a Pioneer Park (and all the associated financial risks for a Friends group) or complete Council control with the threat of expected cuts to follow."
 
That's fantastic. What a bunch of deluded idiots.

Please invite them to add their thoughts in the Buzz article comments where I'll be happy to robustly tell them to GTFO.
Dammit if these people were really friends of the park they wouldn't go into it. Rip up the pathways. Get it totally re-wilded. Reintroduce indigenous species such as red squirrels, badgers and of course the Brockwell wolf pack to keep the humans out.
 
Dammit if these people were really friends of the park they wouldn't go into it. Rip up the pathways. Get it totally re-wilded. Reintroduce indigenous species such as red squirrels, badgers and of course the Brockwell wolf pack to keep the humans out.
I’d be up for red squirrels and hedgehogs 😍
 
So to be fair the park doesn’t look too bad on the whole - but where the grass was covered with tracks and the junctions with the tarmac paths will take quite a while to recover I think. Possibly not before springtime. They need to find a different way of getting the infrastructure in and out of the park to avoid this next time
 
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