Parkrun will be taking place here every Saturday morning
Parkrun will be coming to Charlton Park next month, its organisers have revealed – giving locals the chance to gather and run, walk or wheel 5k every Saturday morning.
The event was given funding by Greenwich Council in April after the Community Voting Day event, staged by the town hall’s public health department to help ideas to boost community wellbeing in the wake of the pandemic. Charlton Triangle Homes also helped fund the start-up costs.
Now organisers have confirmed that they have the go-ahead to start in October. The exact date is under wraps at present to prevent it being swamped on its first day – some more dedicated Parkrun fans have been known to travel far and wide to inaugural events.
All runners and walkers need to do is register on the Parkrun website and print off a barcode, and then turn up for 9am.
However, the team are still looking for volunteers to help put the first events on – if you can stand in the park and marshal, help time the event, scan barcodes or tail walk to make sure nobody gets left behind. If you can help, email charlton[at]parkrun.com.
Updated on Friday to include new email address and to mention Charlton Triangle Homes.
The Blackheath Newbridge club on Charlton Road last AprilThe Horn Fair will return to Charlton House next month after a year away – with its organisers promising that it “will celebrate life across Greenwich after a considerable time apart”.
Residents are being asked to submit photos of life during the pandemic to the Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust so that a selection can be displayed at the fair. “Whether it’s a photo of a family at home, a street scene clapping carers, or a local market standing empty, the primary requirement is that photos represent the pandemic as it was from the perspective of the photographer, amateur or professional,” the trust says.
Photos can be submitted by anyone, whether or not they live in the area, but must have been taken in the borough of Greenwich from March 2020 to the present day. The deadline for submissions is this Sunday at 11.59pm. Images may also be added to the borough archive, entrants can also win an afternoon tea for two.
The Green Goddess pop-up pub will also be open, while the Collectors dance trio will also be performing their Picture Me There show inspired by life in Charlton. There will also be “musicians and artisan creators from across the borough”,
The free event will run from 11am to 4pm on Sunday 17 October. For more information and to enter the photography competition, visit the trust’s website.
A couple of months ago, a dance trio, THE COLLECTORS, appealed for readers’ help in creating a Charlton-themed dance piece, Picture Me There. Now it’s about it get its first two performances. They tell us…
This site specific work is devised and shaped from pictures and photos of people in Charlton both historic and present. With references to the lido, Charlton House and the football club, expect a quirky and playful montage.
The crossing has been a local landmark since the 1850s
Charlton Champion exclusive: Plans to close Angerstein Wharf foot crossing have been cancelled by Network Rail, people who live close to the branch line will be told at a meeting this evening.
The historic crossing over a single-track freight line, one of the last of its kind left in London, connects residents in and near Fairthorn Road, Charlton, with Farmdale Road in east Greenwich and a footbridge over the A102 to Westcombe Park station.
Network Rail amended its claim to state that the crossing was the most dangerous in south-east London – however, there are no other crossings like it in south-east London.
News that the closure has been cancelled emerged in an email from Matt Pennycook to those involved in the campaign to save the crossing.
“It would appear that, as a result of the collective pressure we exerted, an independent review was commissioned by Network Rail which concluded that there are sufficient grounds in this case to disapply the national algorithm that the organisation uses to determine safety risk at individual crossings,” Pennycook said.
“As such, Network Rail are content to treat Angerstein as an exception to their general policy vis-à-vis such crossing closures.”
The crossing, originally built for farm workers in the 1850s, has grown in importance in recent years with the development of new housing on the old Thorn Lighting site between Victoria Way and Fairthorn Road. The newer Bowen Drive development off Victoria Way, which welcomed its first residents last year, offers a direct link to Gurdon Road and the crossing.
Network Rail has been contacted for comment. It is due to hold a meeting with neighbours this evening to discuss the findings of its review.
If you’re one of those people for whom the Greenwich + Docklands International Festival always comes as a surprise each year, then you might be in for a bigger jolt this week – it’s coming to the back streets of Charlton this Thursday evening.
“Inspired by our increased awareness of nature, wildlife and birdsong during the long months of lockdown, this travelling installation in the form of a giant bird cage will roam the streets at dusk with a soundscape and video projections of birds, which will then be symbolically released to fly across the buildings, trees and landscapes of Charlton.”
“This eight-minute roaming show is primarily for local residents to view from their houses and streets.”
The Mystery Bird will be in Nigeria Road at 8.45pm, and Tallis Grove at 10pm.
We wouldn’t normally cover an event at such short notice, and nobody at GDIF thought to tell us about it. (Otherwise we’d have told you about Family Tree, which took place at Charlton House over the weekend.)
While it’s remarkable and welcome to see the venerable festival – whose Borealis installation is attracting crowds in Greenwich – reaching out into the community, it’d be all the more effective if somebody thought to tell the same community about it in the first place.
(Got a community event coming up in Charlton? Drop us an email at charltonchampion.se7[at]gmail.com. Thank you.)
I am putting on a concert in aid of Charlton House, in the Old Library at 7pm on Sunday 10 October (profits for repairs to the roof of the House). The tickets are £15, to include a glass of wine or fruit juice.
The programme consists of instrumental and vocal music performed by professional and amateur musicians. It contains music to suit all tastes from classical, jazz and musical comedy, etc.
It will be a “relaxed, enjoy yourself” evening.
Tickets can be obtained by telephoning 020 8856 7373 and payments can be made by bank transfer or cheque – details given when booking.
The listed block at 37 Bowater Road will have an extension placed on its roof
Revised plans for 374 homes on the site of the old Siemens factory on the Charlton-Woolwich border have been submitted – with only 15 flats available as “affordable” housing.
Developer U+I is behind the Faraday Works project to redevelop the former telecommunication works, which closed in 1968 and became an industrial estate three years later. It had originally planned to include 35 per cent “affordable” housing on the site – a catch-all term ranging from social rent to shared ownership.
But one of the buildings that was due to be demolished – 37 Bowater Road, a large block facing Barrier Gardens – has been listed by Historic England, a decision that has come at a heavy cost for the 23,000 households on Greenwich Council’s waiting list.
Now U+I says just 11 homes will be for social rent – this is more likely to be London Affordable Rent, about half of market rents and available to those on waiting lists – with only four for shared ownership; making a total of just four per cent “affordable” housing. If counted by rooms, the total rises to five per cent, as the rented and shared-ownership flats are two and three-bedroom homes.
U+I wants to turn Bowater Road into a walking and cycling areaThe site was a telecoms factory until 1968
The plans feature blocks of eight and ten storeys, retaining historic buildings like the currently-derelict wire factory to the north of the site, and turning Bowater Road into a pedestrian and cycle-friendly space. The saved 37 Bowater Road building will gain a roof extension and be turned into flats.
There will also be office, light industrial and community space. U+I has pointed to its Caxton Works development across the river in Canning Town, as well as the Old Vinyl Factory – the old EMI complex in Hayes, west London – as examples of what it wants to achieve.
U+I has built a similar development in Canning Town, Caxton Works
The extremely low levels of “affordable” housing are likely to make the scheme politically toxic unless funding can be found to include more subsidised housing in the development – with councillors forced to decide whether a showpiece development that will bring in employment and revitalise dilapidated historic buildings compensates for the lack of help in whittling down the waiting list.
Greenwich’s own planning policies call for 24.5 per cent of homes at London Affordable Rent, with a further 10.5 per cent of homes for shared ownership – making a total of 35 per cent “affordable” housing. In May, councillors backed the 801-home Woolwich Exchange scheme with just 19.7 per cent “affordable” housing – a proportion cut from 35 per cent to pay for the retention of Woolwich Public Market, which had also been due for demolition until Historic England stepped in to list it.
The resubmission of plans for Faraday Works is the latest step in the troubled plans to redevelop the Charlton Riverside – currently largely industrial land – into a thriving new neighbourhood with thousands of new homes. Greenwich Council’s own masterplan for the area calls for lower-rise, lower-density buildings compared with neighbouring sites on Greenwich Peninsula and the Royal Arsenal.
The 37 Bowater Road block would become flats
All three major redevelopment plans for the Charlton Riverside have been refused so far – proposals for 771 homes off Anchor and Hope Lane, with 10-storey blocks, were thrown out in 2019 and later rejected by both London mayor Sadiq Khan and a planning inspector.
The Charlton Champion 