Lewisham Gateway: Phase 2 consultation

I haven’t posted here about Lewisham Gateway lately, just because the project has been merely ticking along roughly according to plan – we’re in about Month 3 of 27 of Phase 1 and accordingly:

• the old bus station site and former Station Road have been utterly destroyed and the river beneath them has been exposed and is being messed about with;
• the Rennell Street car park closed, on 16 June, and combined with the former hillock where Save Lewisham Hospital marches used to set off from has become another hoarded-off section of building site;
• a week from today, on Monday 14 July, ‘major roadworks’ begin around the roundabout: this’ll be the beginning of the end for the triangular islands in the centre of each road off the roundabout, and see various traffic signals moved into barrels for ease of manipulation – and the Glass-Mill-to-DLR pedestrian crossing moved to the Glass Mill side of its neighbouring railway bridge.

I continue to update my ongoing set of Lewisham Gateway progress photos (newest first), which generally have descriptive captions, so do check in on those from time to time if you wonder how things are going. Here are a couple of recent highlights…

Goodbye, Station Road bridge:

Rennell Street site:

 

Phase 2 plans

But even as Phase 1 makes progress through its 27-month plan, the developers have their eye on Phase 2, and as such have updated their web site with a new page consulting on their plans for Phase 2.

A particularly striking thing about Phase 2 is that this isn’t the phase in which the reclaimed roundabout site gets redeveloped, or anything much happens anywhere south of that towards Rennell Street: no, this is actually the completion of what you or indeed I may vaguely have in the backs of our heads as being Phase 1 – the development of the former bus station and Station Road site.

Phase 2 of Lewisham Gateway is mainly about building new homes (flats) to the north of the new Confluence Place park – essentially, a strip of flat-building roughly where the eastern arm of Station Road ran until it closed recently.

Consultation exhibition

As well as the information and feedback form on the web site, there’s a chance to go to two exhibitions about the proposals next week, and indeed to “find out more about the work already taking place now”, which is perhaps the more alluring prospect:

Friday 18 July, 14.30–19.00

Leemore Centre
29-39 Clarendon Rise
Lewisham
SE13 5ES

Saturday 19 July, 10.30–15.00

Centre Square
Lewisham Shopping Centre
Lewisham High Street
SE13 7HB

No, I’m not 100% sure what ‘Centre Square’ is myself but I assume it’s probably the interior space in the shopping centre, next to Muffin Break.

So, what’s in store on the Lewisham Gateway site? When will some affordable housing put in its first appearance? (Phase 2, I hope – it was disappointingly dropped from Phase 1 to ensure the developer went ahead with the huge highway reconfiguration.) Just how many Phases will there actually be by the end of the Lewisham Gateway project? When is the end of the Lewisham Gateway project going to be anyway? All questions we may be able to get some kind of answers to at the end of next week – should be worth dropping in!