Over the last two years, the council has been meeting regularly with tenants of the Elephant and Castle through a forum called the Shopping Centre Liaison Group. In addition, several other meetings have been held with shop owners from the Walworth Road and the market traders. Throughout 2005 and beyond, the council will increase the number of meetings with local businesses and will try to reach as many as possible that will either be directly or partially affected by the regeneration plans.

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"This is the most exciting development opportunity in Europe. Improving a central London area on this scale will never happen again in our lifetime"
Norman Foster

Message from the Deputy Leader

In the introduction to the Elephant and Castle framework for development, which Southwark adopted as planning guidance in February this year, I acknowledged that the public wants more from Elephant and Castle. They want more and better homes, and more and better shopping and leisure opportunities.

You as businesses, and they as consumers, have had to cope with a declining environment for decades. Dilapidated buildings, choking traffic and a poor reputation have held us all back from the potential the area has. That situation is finally beginning to change and the expectations and optimism in the local area are higher now than they have been for years.

As a council, Southwark has a duty to respond by planning and promoting a vision of how the Elephant and Castle can be. We have set out in clear terms how this can be achieved through a logical sequence of steps; rebuilding the housing, creating new open spaces, remodeling the transport facilities and making the case for a huge investment in the town centre.

But the council cannot, of course, run the shops, cinemas, restaurants and commercial leisure facilities or the myriad other non-public services that our residents currently find in other parts of London. That is your job as business people and entrepreneurs.

I hope that in our plans you will see positive opportunities to use your skills and your knowledge of this area to seize opportunities to continuing serving the public at the Elephant & Castle.

Councillor Catherine Bowman

Deputy Leader, Southwark Council

 


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