Executive recommend closing Livesey Children's Museum

Tuesday night saw the Council's LibDem-Tory Executive Committee meet to agree their budget recommendations. Their coalition has an overall majority on the council and so their recommendations are likely to be agreed at Full Council Assembly next week when the budget is finalised.

A huge number of concerned residents and children came down to the Town Hall to protest against the proposals. It was fantastic to see the kids really getting into it chanting "Let the Livesey Live" - political engagement at such a young age.

Sadly the Executive weren't moved by this and still want to go forward with proposals to close the museum and save £140,000 a year. They claim they just can't afford to keep the museum going, but they were able to find an extra £2.5m to emply yet more management consultants to look at "modernising" the council (that's on top of the £11.4m spent on consultants this year). They are also proposing to increase council tax by 4%.

There are more details on Cllr Peter John's website about Labour's alternative proposals - I'll be voting for a budget which doesn't cut the Livesey Museum, doesn't hike up meals on wheels charges, doesn't make massive cuts in the community safety budget and increases council tax only by inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index (ie around 2% - in line with public sector pay increases). To do this we'll be proposing cuts in the wasteful use of consultants, agency staff, publicity and promotions.

I know it's a tough financial year for Southwark, and most local authorities. We'd certainly like to get a lot more than a 2% increase in our grant from government and we're helping the council to lobby Ministers. But even so I still believe the council could produce a balanced budget that didn't involve drastic service cuts like closing the Museum. At the very least they could keep it open this year and give people the chance to investigate other sources of funding for the Museum.

On a slightly lighter note I was most entertained by Executive Member for Finance, and self-confessed ultra Thatcherite Tory Cllr Toby Eckersley, speculating that things would be better for Southwark Council under a "more favourable" (presumably he means Tory) government. I certainly don't recall his "dear lady" showing much generousity towards local government or any other sort of public services.

Fighting for Brayards Green

Following on from Save the South London Line, Save the Community Centre, Save the Childrens Museum, Save Brimmington Green, my latest campaign is Save Brayards Green (I fear it'll be Save the Post Office next).

The LibDem-Tory Council Executive decided last night that they want to build houses on part of Brayards Green. In fairness they are going to be affordably housing association homes and it's a part of the Green, not all of it.

But quite rightly local residents from both the Brayards Estate and surrounding streets are opposed to this. There are lots of "brown field" sites in Nunhead & Peckham - former factories and the like - which are quite rightly being built on and we need to ensure that the Green and the 100+ yr old trees should be kept.

Disappointly the Executive weren't persuaded. However, they still need Housing Corporation funding and planning permission so our fight goes on.

Brimmington Park Saved!

Good news. It's now been confirmed that the site compound will go on the hard standing near the railway line and not on Brimmington Park. So the Brimmington Festival should be able to go ahead after all!!

Save the Livesey Children's Museum Update

The campaign to save the Livesey Children's Museum is picking up pace. On Tuesday I joined local parents, children, Val Shawcross AM and some of my fellow councillors at the Museum.

The online petition now has over 350 signatures and our two local papers, the Southwark News and the South London Press are also helping to publicise the campaign.

Unfortunately it seems we need to redouble our efforts as this email from my colleague Cllr Andrew Pakes explains.

Thank you for signing the online 'Save the Livesey Children's Museum' petition, there has been a great response from all parts of the community and from supporters across the world.

Despite the overwhelming response and positive coverage in the South London Press and Southwark News, this morning the Council tabled its recommendation that the Museum should close at the end of March. The announcement was contained in just one sentence in a 14-page report. Overall, closing the Museum will 'save' Southwark Council £140,000 - a lot of money but a small sum compared to budget as a whole. It is also considerably less than what the council proposes to spend on publicity, consultants, agency workers or a range of other items.

The recommendation will be discussed next Tuesday by the Executive - these are the Lib Dem and Tory councillors who have proposed these cuts. So, we still have a lot to do in fighting this devastating cut.

Please forward this email onto anyone else who has not yet signed the petition and ask them to do so: http://www.gopetition.com/online/16681.html For more information on the Museum visit: http://www.liveseymuseum.org.uk/. The more support we can get the better. This is a fantastic Museum and a great resource for children, parents and the local community.

Shame on the Leadership of Southwark Council for putting self-interest and political spin before the needs of our local community in in Peckham and the children who benefit from the Museum.

Please do email me at this address if you have any ideas about how else we might highlight this issues or fight the cuts.

Kind regards

Andrew

Cllr Andrew Pakes
Member for Livesey Ward

Save the Livesey Children's Museum

The Livesey Children's Museum is a fantastic resource on the Old Kent Road for the local community and beyond, but it is now under threat due to budget cuts by the Lib Dem/Tory run Council. If the budget cuts go through later this month the museum could close as soon as April.

There has already been a great community response to this issue. Please add your voice and help defend this asset by joining signing the online petition.

Brimmington Park/Decent Homes Works

The council is about to start some major works on council owned properties in and around Clifton Crescent, Culmore Road, Pomeroy St and Astbury Road. Council tenants will be getting long awaited double glazing, rewiring, new bathrooms and kitchens.

Unfortunately the building contractor for the works isn't locally based and needs to have an enormous site compound for storing equipment, materials and to provide tenants with washing facilities etc while work is happening in their homes.

In typical Southwark Housing Department style a unilateral decision was made that this giant compound - about the size of an Olympic swimming pool - would be put on Brimmington Park. This was with no consultation with residents or even with the park manager! The compound would be in place for nearly a year taking up a huge chunk of the park and would mean that the Brimmington Festival would have to be cancelled.

Fortunately we think there is another site available. Residents from Clifton Crescent and Friends of Brimmington Park contacted me and it seems that the site might be able to go on a disused ball court area by the railway lines. I got the officers from the housing, parks and play department to come down with the contractors and everyone agrees it would be better. The final decision on whether it is feasible will be taken next week.

Save the South London Line Update

There was enormous support across South London for the campaign against the divertion of the South London Line rail service (London Bridge - Victoria via Queens Road Station).

Our London Assembly Member Val Shawcross took the matter up with Mayor Ken Livingstone and secured his agreement for a proper survey to be done of the use of the line. TfL London Rail are carrying out this survey which will give us not just the numbers of passengers using the line but also the purpose of their journey, their origin and final destination. We hope to have this information in a month or two and then meet again with Network Rail.

So if you see people on Queens Road doing a survey please do take part!

Planning applications

I've been working with residents on quite a few planning applications.

1) 2-8 Ansdell Road
There was an entirely inappropriate application to build a block of 31 flats on a site where there used to be 2 prefab bungalows. The application was refused by the planning department on 11 seperate grounds. Astonishingly the developer has appealed against the decision and there will be a hearing on it, probably in March. In the meantime the developer also seems to be considering building some terraced housing on the site as there is already permission for that.

2) 1a St Mary's Road
This site is currently two empty houses and some storage garages just to the north of Frobisher Place (aka the Grade II listed Pioneer Centre). There was nothing fundamentally wrong with the application to build some mews houses on the site, but I think they were just trying to squeeze one or two too many on. The wall of the new houses would have been just a few meters away from the living room windows of residents in the Pioneer Centre. I spoke at the Community Council meeting and the committee was persuaded to refuse planning permission.

3) Brabourne Grove
This was an application to build new homes on an industrial site behind Brabourn Grove. Not something I'm opposed to in principle, but there were some big problems with this particular proposal and the planning department refused permission on 6 seperate grounds.

Street Drinkers

The numbers of street drinkers seems to have fallen considerably at Queens Rd. They were gathering near the bus stop opposite Asylum Road and generally making a nuisance of themselves - not a big deal when there were one or two, but sometimes there were as many as 20!

Our local police team have been working hard and the council has put a fence up on the wall they liked to sit on. I dare say the colder weather is also a major factor so we wait to see whether they return.

Renewal Area Update

Not a huge amount to report. The work on Astbury Road should start shortly. It's less clear when anything much will happen elsewhere.

The current Executive Member for Regeneration has announced that he will resign in Febuary to take up a new job in political lobbying. Hopefully his sucessor will take a greater interest in this project - which I think tends to get overlooked in favour of bigger and more glamourous projects like the Elephant & Castle, Aylesbury and Canada Water regeneration projects.

CANCELLED - Have your say on the future of Queens Road

UPDATE

THIS CONSULTATION HAS BEEN CANCELLED AS THERE IS A COUNCIL BYELECTION IN RIVERSIDE WARD AND AS A RESULT LOTS OF LEGAL RESTRICTIONS ON THE COUNCIL. IT WILL BE RESCHEDULED FOR THE NEW YEAR.


A number of readers have asked me what's going to replace the now demolished Woodene blocks on Queens Road. And now I have an answer (of sorts).

The council is holding a consultation event/exhibition to allow members of the public to have their say on redevelopment options.

Location
Bells Gardens Community Hall,
19 Bullier Close, SE15

Opening hours
Friday 30 Nov 2pm - 8pm
Saturday 1 Dec 11am - 4pm

Wear it Pink

This month is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and tomorrow is Wear it Pink day. So wear pink tomorrow and donate £2 to the Breast Cancer Campaign so they can continue researching for a cure to breast cancer.

Save the South London Line - our submission

The deadline for responses to the draft South London Line Route Utilisation Strategy is this Friday. We decided that as well as the petitions it would be best to send one response from all the Southwark Labour councillors as together we all represent the areas of Peckham, Camberwell and Bermondsey affected by the proposed cuts to the South London Line. We've also sent it to the council officers preparing the official response from Southwark Council and we hope they will respond in similar terms.

We are writing to express our sincere disappointment in the proposed options for service changes included in the South London Route Utilisation Strategy and strenuous objection to any curtailment of services from Denmark Hill, Peckham Rye, Queens Road and South Bermondsey to London Bridge and Victoria stations. Such a move would adversely affect many of our constituents who currently use the line and is contrary to the interest of Southwark more widely.

The specific reasons for our objection are as follows:

Southwark already has bad public transport links to central London with journey times that are very poor relative to the distances travelled. The borough does not have any underground stations south of Elephant and Castle and large numbers of our constituents have access to no other form of public transport than the bus service. There would be, therefore, no satisfactory alternative for South London Line users (particularly at Denmark Hill, Peckham Rye and Queens Road) to switch to were the service cut, greatly inconveniencing a significant number of individuals who reside or are employed in the borough.

We welcome any investigation into the expansion of existing services including development of a new Camberwell Green station. Any reduction in services, conversely, is not acceptable.
Passenger numbers on the services are high. The report concedes that, despite accusations of under-promotion, overcrowding is already a problem on the South London Line with trains and stations already at saturation, a sentiment that is echoed by correspondence with our own constituents. To suggest that the service is eligible for cuts due to failing demand, therefore, is unreasonable, and the prioritisation of services coming in from outside London unjustifiable.

Making services more infrequent (or scrapping them all together) would have the combined affect of dramatically inconveniencing rail users by decreasing regularity and increasing overcrowding and would discourage individuals from using the line in the future. Whilst we welcome the proposed extensions to the East London Line with enthusiasm, the promise that services to Southwark will improve when the extensions are complete (at some unknown date) is of no comfort to us.

Denmark Hill station is important for access to King’s College Hospital. The primary care trust has expressed particular concern that cutting services to Denmark Hill would severely hamper accessibility to King’s College for patients, many of whom travel from across the borough and from other parts of London. So important is the station for access to the hospital by patients that the Department for Transport recently recognised it as a priority for accessibility works. Any cut in services would render accessibility improvements to the station redundant and run in direct contradiction to the DfT’s current recognised priorities.

Further to this point, we think that issues of access must be a priority for an effective Rail Utilisation Strategy to be realised. We remain confident in the utmost that yet more local people would use the South London Line if all of the stations identified for this proposed cut in service were made accessible for the disabled, the elderly and others.

The primary care trust is also concerned that service changes would make King’s College Hospital more inaccessible for staff and medical students, many of whom currently use the South London Line to move between King’s College and Guy’s Hospital near London Bridge Station, a concern that we would like to reiterate.

The South London Line will act as a link between Southwark’s administrative and civic centres. In the near future, thousands of Southwark Council staff are planned to move into a new administrative centre for the local authority on Tooley Street near London Bridge. The South London Line in its current state will provide a necessary link for staff and residents to Tooley Street. Cutting services to London Bridge, on the other hand, from Peckham Rye, Queen’s Road, and South Bermondsey and scrapping them from Denmark Hill would severely impede accessibility to the borough’s new administrative centre.

Save the South London Line - hitting the streets

Thanks to all the commuters who gave us a warm welcome this morning as we handed out leaflet/petition forms at Queens Road Station.

I was joined by fellow Nunhead councillor Dominic Thorncroft (pictured) and Livesey councillors Andrew Pakes and Mary Foulkes. Unfortunately Althea Smith was too ill to join us, but she did come and collect some leaflets to hand out as soon as she feels better.

The online petition is still going stong. Up to 660 signatures now.

Save the South London Line - campaign update

The online petition is a great success with over 560 signatures so far.

My colleagues in Camberwell have been out at Denmark Hill Station gathering signatures for the petition. Cllr Peter John, Val Shawcross AM and Cllr Veronica Ward are in the picture (Cllr John Friary was also there he took the picture).

Nunhead and Livesey councillors will be at Queens Road Station tomorrow morning.