The long expected exile of TPH has now been officially announced to Staff at Palestra.
In a memo to staff, Garret Emmerson announced :
"As I am sure you know Palestra is busy. The number of colleagues based here has reached a level beyond that which we are able to comfortably accommodate.
"After carefully considering a range of options at Surface Board, we believe the best option is to move our Service Operations Directorate to a refurbished Faith Lawson House in Westminster.
"Areas in other directorates that work in partnership on Service Operations projects will also co-locate to Faith Lawson House."
So, in line with the Surface Integration Program (SIP), Taxis and private hire will be moved to the Westminster building, along with Project and Programmes Directorate, Finance, Commercial and IT staff supporting the business.
Along with appropriate Asset Management, Enforcement and on Street Operations and Planning staff.
Also elements of Victoria Coach Station, River Services and (in their own words) customer experience, in relation to Cycle Hire Transformation and Road User Charging in relation to Group Planning.
Garret goes on to say:
"These changes will also allow us to achieve our long standing ambition to move the (EOS) traffic enforcement team into Palestra, to work alongside London Streets Traffic Control Centre (LSTCC) to focus on minimising congestion through effective enforcement."
So as predicted, the bus boys will be taking over Palestra.
We expect the refurbishment work to begin shortly, and staff to start to move in from October. Over summer we will work on plans of how to best use the space left vacant at Palestra
A member of staff who wishes to remain anonymous said:
They didn't even have the grace to contact each affected staff member personally. Emails were sent to managers which told them as some staff are not on line, print off and stick on notice boards.
It's disgraceful the way we've been treated.
