Letter to the editor: Come on St Modwen and Lewisham Council, give us a town centre we can be proud of.

Residents of Lee Green have long lived with the neglected site of Leegate at their town centre. Now its owners, who have allowed the site to deteriorate, are offering residents plans for redevelopment that will be submitted for planning permission by the end of November.

And do these new plans offer an improvement?

St Modwen plans to build a second superstore, the same size as Sainsbury’s and directly opposite it.

The size of the superstore leaves little room for anything else and bring several thousand new cars a day to Lee Green junction, which Transport for London confirm has a higher than average collision rate, is seriously backed up for large parts of the day and from which pupils from nearby Trinity school pour in and out daily.

Over recent years, more than 20 small traders have successfully traded in Leegate, offering residents variety and keeping profits local.

There are fewer than half this number of small units in proposed plans.

Public squares and walkways, currently placed safely away from traffic, are to be relocated to a widened pavement along highly polluted Burnt Ash Road and will be reduced to less than a third of their current size: Engagement with residents has been cynically misleading. For example, images for a public exhibition on November 15 in Leegate show large, green gardens at their centre misleadingly labelled “welcoming public spaces at the heart of plans”, when this greenery will be three storeys high and not open to the public.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to restore the heart and soul to Lee Green’s centre. Let us not waste it.

A BETTER LEE GREEN CAMPAIGN