Merton Council are running a consultation called moreMorden until 10 October 2008 on outline proposals for regenerating Morden town centre. What follows is my summary of the main consultation document (PDF) and its supporting fact sheet (PDF). I don’t work for the council, so these are just my words, not my ideas.

Members of the public and local organisations can make their views known via a paper questionnaire (PDF), an online form and unusually, on a moreMorden Facebook group.

Photo of Morden town centre by Charlotte Gilhooly.

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Morden has a lot of potential and a lot of problems. On the upside, it has the Tube station, good bus connections and is reasonably near to the tram. It has good access to nearby parks. It has the potential to build more housing, improve the number, range and quality of the shops and attract other businesses to the town centre.

On the downside, many of the existing town centre buildings and streets are poor quality, outdated and poorly maintained. While many people pass through Morden centre on the way to other places, few stop to shop or use other leisure or social facilities. Few people live in the town centre, while those that live in the surrounding residential neighbourhoods tend to shop, work and socialise elsewhere. Bigger shops and new businesses don’t want to open in Morden because few people use it at present. At the same time, few people use it at present because it doesn’t offer much. It’s a vicious circle.

The council would like to build more and better shops, office space and housing in the town centre. It expects that if more people lived in the town centre it would make Morden an attractive place for shops and other businesses to come. These new town centre residents would be potential customers and workers for the new shops and businesses. Having more people living in the town centre would also provide the opportunity to build better community, cultural and leisure facilities.

As well as new buildings and facilities, the council would also like to improve the quality of the streets by removing clutter (eg. excessive signage, bollards and railings), using better materials for pavements, proving more trees and greenery and installing more attractive benches, signage, lighting and other “street furniture”. The council would also like to improve facilities for pedestrians and cyclists and in places would like to give them priority over motor traffic.

At the moment, the council has an idea of the general direction for future developments and would like members of the the public and local organisations to outline their priorities and suggest any other ideas which the council may have not considered. This feedback is important as the council wants to design for the real needs of local people, not just what it imagines those needs to be.

The issue of the amount of new building development in the town centre is very important. Once the area plan has been decided, the council will invite private property developers to submit plans for each new building or group of buildings. The council is able to make these property developers pay for improvements to the local area as a condition of giving them planning permission for their proposed buildings. The more building the council allows, the more money it will get from the property developers to pay for general street improvements and other facilities to benefit local people. (This process is called “planning obligation” or a “Section 106 agreement“.)

Therefore, the council is asking people both what kinds of facilities they would like locally and how much new building they are happy to see in Morden town centre to pay for those facilities.