Agenda item

Report of the Head of Regeneration and Development – Alexandra Palace

Mark Hopson – Head of Regeneration and Development – introduced the report as set out.

He introduced Daniel Griffiths from PPS Group, who outlined the findings from the regeneration consultation. 

NOTED:

·        There was a broad range of respondents to the surveys – responses were received by the internet, post and over 800 were received through the ‘street teams’.  In all, 2100 responses were received.

·        Nearly half of respondents ranked ‘improving first impressions’ as the most important aspect in the future improvement of the Palace, with ‘upgrading the entrances to the palace’ as the second most important.

·        The top priorities were listed as ‘upgrading the main halls’ and ‘opening up the theatre’.

·        There was a good mix of ages within the respondents, and BME respondents made up 25% of the replies.

·        A postcode analysis had been carried out, with majority of responses received from N22, N10 and N8.

·        268 forms were received after the end of the consultation – the findings mirrored those of the original analysis.

·        Building a hotel in the Palace was the most contentious of all suggestions, with around 70 comments made generally opposed to the proposal, but a small majority were in favour.

The Chair commented that the concerns over whether the whole borough was reached were validated by the postcode analysis of respondents.  He added however, that a significant amount of work had taken place to ensure that residents in the east of the borough had been reached as part of the consultation exercise.

The following responses were provided to questions from the Board:

·        The consultation deliberately left out any questions about the Park, as a major refurbishment had been carried out in 2007.  The regeneration of the Palace was a bigger challenge.

·        In response to whether an analysis against each postcode could be carried out, as certain roads could have different issues to others – for example, responses from N10 may be different to responses from N15 -   Mark Hopson explained that although this analysis could be carried out, not all respondents left their postcodes so the breakdown may not represent all respondents in a particular postcode.

Mark Hopson then referred the Board to the URS report at Appendix 2.  URS were commissioned to provide advice and specialist input to the consultation on the spatial masterplan.  As part of this input, a set of focused discussion groups were held with targeted groups of young people, older people, disabled people and people from diverse ethnic backgrounds.

Councillor Peacock commented that she had not been approached for contact details of people in her pensioners group, which had over 400 members.  Mark Hopson explained that URS had approached groups via the 800 voluntary organisations in the borough and that this information was provided by the Council’s diversity department.  Duncan Wilson added that as responses to the consultation were still be collected, he would attend a meeting and asked Councillor Peacock to provide him with details.

RESOLVED

i)          That the results of the public consultation outlined in the report and the independent reports at Appendix 2 and 3 be noted.

ii)         That the next steps as outlined in section 8 of the report be approved.