Our role
Cascade’s role was to manage stakeholder and community engagement for the redevelopment of the Old Southwark Fire Station to deliver an 1150 student secondary school and sixth form college, 199 new homes, commercial space on Southwark Bridge Road as well as a new community sports centre and green open space. The site was closed by the Mayor of London in 2014 and presented significant design challenges including demolition of listed buildings, very close immediate neighbours, building a new sports centre on Metropolitan Borough Open Land and affordable housing issues with Southwark Council and the GLA.
Cascade took a comprehensive approach to carrying out public consultation which comprised over 70 hours of consultation including public exhibitions, community workshops, door knocking, site visits with local politicians and information events. Our approach to consultation was praised by local stakeholders and enabled the team to make key changes to the proposals and reduce the number of objections.
Impact
Cascade effectively generated significant levels of support for the scheme, coordinating an extensive grassroots campaign with local residents and parents, which proved crucial in gaining planning consent and overcoming the challenges around affordable housing and the Mayor of London. The campaign involved 10 after school events at local schools, an email and social media campaign, engagement with the Bankside Residents Forum as well as a petition and direct lobbying of local councillors. The campaign resulted in:
- 235 letters of support on the Council’s application portal with only 25 objections.
- A rally outside the Fire Station attended by over 100 local parents.
- A petition signed by over 1000 people calling on the Mayor of London to support the application.
- A local resident speaking in support of the planning application at the committee meeting.
The application was unanimously approved by Southwark Council’s Planning Committee in January 2018.