Gala Music Festival 2025
This year’s festival will be held over 4 days, Friday 23rd - Monday 26th May. The footprint of the festival has been enlarged, encroaching further south east of the site. There will be a new access point in Colyton Road and a trackway built along the south side of the Park, so another new significant area of grass could be churned up and damaged. The Friends are advocating to ensure the park is left in better condition this year.
The Community Wildlife Garden is largely maintained by the Friends. Our volunteer mornings are usually on the first Sunday of the month at 10am.
The more volunteers the merrier, so please make sure to come along. If you want to know more about the volunteer days, please email peckhamryepark@gmail.com.
We have been pressuring Southwark Council to refurbish the toilets by the Rangers’ Hut in the Park. They have been the only working toilets in the Park since those by the Adventure Playground were closed after being vandalised over a year ago.
A groundswell of complaints from Park users and a online petition created by one of our members seems to have resulted in action. Southwark Parks have said they will start work after the summer so that the toilets can be used during their busiest months.
Southwark Parks informed FoPRP that the toilets by the Adventure Playground were mended in October 2024 and are open from 7.30am until Park closure. All the reports we have received and our own evidence has been that these toilets are not open. The park rangers are investigating.
Our ever popular fete and dog show will be held on Peckham Rye Common on Saturday 6th September 2025 from 12-5pm. It takes a lot of work to run the fete and we especially need volunteers to run the coconut shy and children’s races. Please contact us on peckhamryepark@gmail.com if you can give us an hour or two of your time.
We had another wonderful fete and dog show last year on Saturday 7th September 2024. A busy crowd enjoyed all the fun of the dog show, sack races, coconut shy, Punch and Judy, the Friends-run stands and stalls such as the Pimms, wine and beer stand, the tea and cakes tent, the book and plant stalls, along with a variety of other food stands and stalls
The dog show profits are given to charity. All other profits from last year’s fete were spent on clearing the central rose beds on the Sexby Garden which had become seriously overgrown with many of the roses needing to be replaced.
The fencing has been taken down and we are waiting for the final landscaping to be done on the north side of the Common.
The damage to areas of the Common includes sections of churned up mud instead of grass. After a site visit with the Friends, the park rangers and the works commissioner at the Council, we await news of when remedial works will be started.
The American Garden, located between the Sexby Garden and the Lake, is now open. The Garden has been replanted with trees, shrubs and eye-catching, nectar-rich herbaceous plants of a kind first introduced to Britain through the world famous 18th century seed and plant exchange between Britain’s Peter Collinson, FRS and John Bartram of Philadelphia. The funding of the garden was supported by the US Embassy, Lord Harris, Southwark Council, the Friends of Peckham Rye Park., the Local Postcode Trust and Vindor. The project was overseen by Nancy Coleman-Frank.
With the help of volunteers, Earthwatch, an environmental charity, have planted and will be responsible for a Tiny Forest on the southern edge of Peckham Rye Common,
The feasibility study for which funding was raised by Peckham Lido CIC back in 2016 was finally published in April 2021 (accessible via the Peckham Lido Facebook page).
The study outlines four options (the fourth of which is to take no further action) and states a preference for Option Two which would involve: Heated lido and café, possibly supplemented by a gym and fitness centre; a 125+ years lease from Southwark council with no break or restrictive clauses; and a yearly contribution from the council for capital expenditure.
Option Two, the study says, would have a 'greater impact' than the other three options on the Common, which is protected Metropolitan Open Land. Overall development and construction costs are estimated at £6m.
The feasibility study does not mention that as part of the flood alleviation project works, planning permission has been given by Southwark Council and the Secretary of State for re-landscaping the northern end of the Common (including the site of the old lido) with new pathways and biodiversity areas.
There has been an increase of visitors to the Park and Common. Unfortunately this has resulted in a widespread increase of rubbish and people have been using the bushes as a toilet. There has also been damage to planting and even plant theft. Please do what you can to impress upon others the importance of respecting the Park and Common and encourage them to take their rubbish home.
The picture is of the signage put up in the Royal Parks.
As a result of the General Data Protection Regulation, which comes into
effect on 25 th May 2018, we are providing this summary of how FOPRP
collects and uses members’ personal data.
Information we collect. We collect your personal details when you join
FOPRP or otherwise provide them to us. The data will include all or some of
the following: name, address, email address, date and method of payment.
Use of your information. We use your information only for the purpose it
was collected, which is to send you the FOPRP newsletter and keep you
informed about matters affecting Peckham Rye Park and Common.
Storing of information. Your information is stored on a secure computer
system. We control who has access to this information. We review what we
hold and delete what is no longer required. If you use PayPal, your payment
details are held securely by PayPal.
Sharing data. We do not sell your data and we do not share it with anyone
outside the FOPRP committee.
Your data, your choice. The new legislation does not require us as a
membership organisation to get renewed consent to use your information,
and our assumption is that you will be happy for FOPRP to continue to hold
and use your data to keep you informed about Peckham Rye Park and
Common. If this is not the case, please contact us by email at
foprp@aol.com or write to us at The Friends of Peckham Rye Park, c/o The
Park Office, Strakers Road, Peckham Rye Park, London SE15 3UA
