Remember our local garden centre?

This shows part of the former popular Garden Centre at 163 Iverson Road - now cleared and deserted since it was forced to close by its jandlord (Network Rail) earlier this year.

Since sold on to developers, it is now the subject of a somewhat bizarre planning proposal which was unveiled to a bemused audience of local residents annd councillors at a meeting held at the Sidings Community Centre last week.

It is an awkward site being a small triangle which tapers away towards the new Thameslink station . On the narrow end (shown in this picture) the plan shows four little town houses (they will have to have very small rooms as they are squahed up against the railway fence). But is was the main building that caused most comment - looking from above a bit like the wing of an areoplane, one end was completely on stilts - the architect said it would be living amongst the trees!! The building also ran right up to the edge of the pavement which meant passers-by could look into their front rooms and made people wonder who would want to live in them.
It is to be hoped that the developers got the message loud and clear and have gone away for a rethink - the audience came up with various alternatives for future use of the site including a car park - but what most people wanted was their garden centre back!

Iverson and Maygrove Roads look likely to suffer lots of development proposals in coming years -the Council wants to build a school (and housing?) on the Liddell Road industrial site off Maygrove Road, there is already a large new building at 65 Maygrove Road and next door to this, another developer has his eye on a massive redevelopment backing on to the Peace Park.
And that's just what is in the pipeline at present - there are several other future possible sites.
Sometimes, as a local Councillor you feel as if you're the boy with his finger in the dyke trying to hold back the flood!