The Trialling the Design Options events included four public workshops from October 10th to 17th.

Each event began with a presentation by our project team, presenting a range of design studies exploring approaches to development of Crystal Palace National Sports Centre. This was followed by a number of interactive activities where participants were able to offer their feedback to these studies and explore how they impacted the future of Centre.

Participants provided a great deal of detailed comments on each of the design studies. A number of the most common are included below:

The Main Building and Swimming Pools

Participants were broadly supportive of reconfiguring activities within the Main Building into related clusters and to creating greater division between the wet and dry sides of the building.

A majority of respondents expressed a desire to retain and improve the 25m pool facility, maintaining the 50m pool in its present configuration.

Athletics Track and Stadium Seating

Participants were broadly in support of the reduction of the scale of permanent seating around the athletics stadium and in creating greater accessibility to the track to the surrounding facilities. Some participants noted a need to better understand how safety and security could be maintained during larger events.

Indoor Athletics

The relocation of the indoor athletic facility to a purpose built space next to the outdoor athletics track was broadly supported by participants. There were some concerns about the length of this facility and how other facilities, including strength and conditioning, would integrate with this new facility, as well as comments highlighting the need to accommodate facilities currently housed in the Jubilee Stand.

Accessibility

Participants were largely in support of proposed improvements to routes across the NSC site, particularly the improved route linking the Centre to Crystal Palace Train Station.

Parking

Participants noted concern about the level of proposed parking illustrated within the studies presented.

Hospitality/Social Space

Participants were largely welcoming of improved social facilities offered in the new central Hub space presented within the design studies. There were a mixture of comments regarding whether the Lodge and Hostel buildings should be retained as part of these facilities, with some participants in favour of retaining these and others keen to centralise these in the new Hub building.

The Community Conference was the final public event as part of the On Your Marks! engagement programme.

Held on Saturday 9th February, the event was created as a celebration of Crystal Palace National Sports Centre. The event was designed to be a showcase of developed design studies building on previous consultation stages, offering the public and Centre users an opportunity to understand how their feedback had shaped the project team’s development of a future proposal.

Alongside presentation boards displaying key sketched images of the developed proposals, there was a Speed Cage activity, colouring sheets for young people, balloons and other attractions.

Participants were able to discuss the illustrated proposals with the project team both before and after the primary presentation during the community conference. There were also short response forms available which allowed participants to score the proposals on questions concerning access and appeal, as well as provide any other comments.

Comments included in the response forms, and anecdotal conversation with project team facilitators are include thematically:

Broad Support for overall approach

A high proportion of participants expressed satisfaction with the proposals presented during the day, with particular positive opinions on improved social facilities contained within the hub space, as well as general commitments to the athletics and swimming facilities and range of external pitches.

Parking

Parking represented the primary topic of concern expressed by participants. There were a number of comments suggesting that the parking space within the illustrated overview images, while indicative, did not represent a sufficient level to support activity at the Centre. There was support for improved management of parking and drop-off areas.

Swimming Facilities

A number of participants expressed satisfaction at the proposed retention and improvement to the 25m pool building, and related continuity of the 50m pool facility as a dedicated pool of this length.

Climbing

There were a number of comments indicating disappointment at the scale of the climbing facilities illustrated within the proposals, although the bouldering and informal facilities were welcomed by some.

Next Steps

There was some concern about the process and timescales beyond the feasibility stage of the redevelopment process. While this was discussed within the presentation during the day, some written responses to the feedback form expressed an interest in ongoing sharing of information regarding later stages.

Continued Engagement

There were some concerns expressed that there was a need to share the proposals further with the wider Centre community, and that some form of ongoing exhibition might be valuable to doing this.