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Exhibition of Designs for the Intercultural Creativity & Conference Centre as part of Central Area Development, Peckham Rye, London

Held 14 to 20 July 2008 inclusive at the "Bussey Building" on the above site.

Affordable Housing, Shops, grouped around a Garden Piazza on a 5-acre site opposite Peckham Rail Station.

The main aims of the ICC Centre are to provide space and facilities for all people of all races to practise and perform creative activites such as music, dance, drama, poetry, visual arts, etc., as a positive route to social integration.

Street crime will not be stopped by reactive punishments and imprisonment; the great need in Peckham is for affordable homes, local employment, shops, cafés, studios, gardens and attractive architecture. This project provides all these

The exhibition was on display throughout the week and included. an Open Forum o the Sunday afternoon, where people and councillors were invited to express their views to the architects and speakers.

Parallel events included music, drama and art throughout the week as part of Peckham Festival.

Contact Micky 0207 6399004 or msmith@clfplanet.com.

In a multi-cultural area like Peckham Rye, many would agree there is a need for an inspiring multi-functional Centre where people of all cultures, religions, races can meet to share and develop their creative work or pleasures in music, dance, theatre, arts, crafts and literature.

Social Workers, Councillors, Politicians are currently saying there is a need to divert young people off the streets into well-equipped Centres where they can channel their energies into creative activities instead of becoming involved in violent gangs or crime.

Few local Community Centres provide spaces for music practice, studios, proper auditoria, art gallery spaces, internet facilities and theatre.

Our proposal is to build this Intercultural Creativity and Conference Centre (ICC Centre) specially designed to meet these diverse needs in a district where people of many cultures live, like Peckham Rye.

Another important aspect of this project is that a beautiful highly-original iconic building like this will undoubtedly attract Londoners and International visitors to this central area of Peckham, provided it is set in the surroundings which local people would like of shops, restaurants, cafés, gardens, crafts and studio workshops, with affordable flats and maisonettes on upper levels.

The site in view for all this is about 7 acres, next to a mixed-development Piazza in-front of the Peckham Rye railway station, currently proposed and outline-approved by the Council. However, London Transport Authority hope to build a tram depot covering the whole site!

If carried out, this would destroy the hopes of most local people for a vibrant regeneration project offering opportunities to local businesses, to expand in retail, catering, services, crafts - and thus employment of all kinds. There is also an urgent need for more-affordable housing in Peckham, which this project can provide.

The owners of most of this site would like to see a diversified development of this kind, as it would much increase its monetary as well as social value.

The Tramway Network planners can surely find other, more suitable, sites for their depot and thereby avoid destroying the very heart of Peckham. If new housing and employment opportunities are not offered to locals soon, street crime is likely to increase in the densely multi-cultural district.

Politicians, the new Mayor of London Boris Johnson, and local Councillors must surely become aware of the great possibilities offered by this new Development Project.

Copies of this letter are being sent to decision-makers concerned about the future of Peckham Rye.

Jeffrey Gale, June 2008