We know that you rely on us for riveting local matters, such as public toilets that might be turned into cocktail bars or scary garden gnomes which look like Tony Blair. However, once in a while public service beckons and we strive to join forces the larger community good.
A few years ago our Kennington friends over at the Earl of Bedlam posited the idea of a community information area in front of St. Anselm’s church to replace the one which has, quite literally, fallen off the wall in recent years. After consultation with an architect in Cleaver Sq. this evolved into more of a message board and 3D ‘monument’ taking more prominence towards the road and direct pedestrians to elevate their gaze above the isolation of their phones. The current project is called ‘CRIB’ or ‘Community Resources Information Board’.
The initial purpose of the monument was hybrid. One was to act as an epicentre for local people who want to meet or impart a message, and also to act as a permanent stone monument to celebrate our collective Kennington lives. Following a very well attended consultation last summer, the organisers decided that their plans might have been a bit ambitious in a community where resources were being cut, and this was scaled back to a message board with a stone seating area. Also in the mix was rotating art exhibits and contributions from City and Guilds art school in Kennington Park Road.
The current proposal is the creation of a four sided stone plinth with four protected message boards and the aforementioned arts contributions from City and Guilds. The plinth will be made of a stone called Swaledale, which has preserved fossils from many millennia. This has been used previously in the very handsome new exit to Green Park station next to the Park. A current concept is that the stone will be engraved with the names who have contributed to the project, in Caroline’s words ‘from pennies to the thousands’.
We celebrate these kinds of initatives not only as they create and perpetuate a sense of civic pride, but it also reaches out to the many people in our community who do not have access to the internet or who are not confident in using it. If you are reading this we assume that you are probably interested in this project and how it might improve our special community. There are loads of ways to get involved in this project and the first way is to join their facebook group called ‘CRIBSKennington’. That bit doesn’t cost anything!