It was fantastic to see our dreams of a parklet on Connaught Street become a reality on Thursday, and things really came to life on Saturday. One local resident took this beautiful photo, above. We love to see the queue for Basque cheesecake snaking outside La Maritxu, and the people sitting on the kerb. Bring in a parklet, and Connaught Village suddenly has a New York feel!
As people milled around, we chatted to some Londoners who had come to pay a visit. This below on the left is Joe, he’s thinking about moving to the area, and welcomed the opportunity to chat to local residents. He said that it’s so important for people’s health to have connections and conversations with those around each other. So true! We hear you Joe!
On the right is Tom and Sandy – they had run all the way from Elephant & Castle. They enjoyed having some replenishment and a rest!
And then, two groups from the charity Joyriders stopped at the parklet – from Brent and also from Camden/Islington. The charity encourages Muslim women to cycle, and organises group rides that are led by experienced cyclists. These two groups clearly enjoyed having their break at our parklet!
One ride leader, Eilidh, (with her hand up on the left), also tweeted this lovely photo, below. She writes that although the parklet and cheesecake was very much enjoyed, there was “too much traffic interrupting chat”, and says to Westminster Council, “please tame your roads”.
Her tweet is here:
Eilidh also messaged us directly, and said that the folks at La Maritxu had told her they’d like the parklet to be permanent, and that they’d really miss it when it was gone! That was a common theme that we saw.
The parklets campaign tweeted: “This popup parklet has shown there is a huge amount of support from local residents, shoppers, visitors and business owners. Time to implement a permanent parklet @CityWestminster!”
Susanne Grieshaber, one of the organisers from the parklets campaign, tweeted, “The shops around here loved the parklet, it brought extra footfall and more seating. Imagine more parklets in the street would do so much for local businesses”.
A big thank you to everyone who has been involved in organising this, from the residents’ association Hyper to the Parklets campaign, to Dr Tom Cohen and colleagues at the University of Westminster.
We think a permanent parklet here would be fantastic, and also, we hope Councillors will be more ambitious with their plans for Connaught Village, with lots more space for people, and also very much taming the traffic!