Nunhead & East Peckham Renewal Area Update Part 1

A lot of people have been asking me for an update on the Nunhead Renewal Area. I must apologise for not posting more on this, but it had become difficult to know what exactly is happening. I was in the midsts of making formal complaints and most of the information I'd been given was on a confidential or off the record basis, so it had become difficult for me to blog anything meaningful. Things are now becoming clearer and into the public domain.

The £14.5m Nunhead & East Peckham Renewal regeneration scheme was initiated in July 2005 and was due to be complete by July 2010. The money was supposed to be split between home improvement grants for low income owner occupiers, street renewals (new garden walls, brick cleans etc as seen in Bellenden area) and shopping area improvements (eg for Evelina Rd). Work was supposed to start with around £1m being spent on new lighting in year one and street renewal on Astbury Rd and Colls Rd.

As regular readers will know my (and many others) excitement about this scheme has gradually turned to deep cynicism as little or nothing was actually delivered except for consultations, focus groups and promises of jam tomorrow.

Myself and other ward councillors took our concerns formally to the Deputy Chief Executive and Finance Director at Southwark Council who initiated an audit to find out exactly what had been spent and delivered. Since then the lighting scheme has finally been delivered (the new Victorian style street lights in Nunhead Grove and other streets to the south of Evelina Rd) and the works in Astbury Rd and Colls Rd are also finally complete. However, with the project due to expire in July and the council's budgets in a mess we were left wondering where the rest of the money has gone and if we'd ever see all the improvements we were promised.

My colleague Dominic Thorncroft has submitted the question below for tonight's Council Meeting at the Town Hall, but we also got some indication on Saturday from Cllr Tim McNally the LibDem executive member for resources.

It seems that £6 to 7m has been spent on the lighting, Astbury/Colls, some work on Meeting House Lane and a lot of individual grants to low income home owners for essential home improvement works. Of the remaining money some is already commited to be spent, but the vast majority is now likely to be clawed back by the council to spend on other projects. I have secured a pledge that the £450k which we were told would be spent on smartening up Evelina Rd will be saved, but it now looks highly unlikely that there will be anymore street renewals.

Sadly I still can't publish my full and frank views on who is to blame and what I would like to happen to them without risking being reported to the Standards Board for breaching the Member - Officer code of conduct. Suffice to say that if the £450k is safe I'll be asking for the delivery of that work to be allocated to a different team in the council.

Here's Dominic's question. I'll post up the answer when I have it (I may well live twitter it from the meeting tonight so watch the Twitter feed).

33. QUESTION TO THE EXECUTIVE MEMBER FOR REGENERATION FROM COUNCILLOR DOMINIC THORNCROFT

In 2005 the council allocated a five year budget of £14.5 million for the Nunhead and East Peckham renewal area. Six months ago, local councillors met with senior officers to seek an update, but despite officers indicating that a progress review was in hand, no further information has yet been forthcoming:

a) Please provide an itemised breakdown of spending that has been made from the allocated budget;
b) Please provide an itemised breakdown of spending that is committed to be made from the allocated budget;
c) How much money remains in this specific budget for allocation on this renewal area?

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.

Renewal Area Update Sept '07

Mixed news on the renewal area.

I'm told that the Council has finally managed to recruit two "Renewal Managers", one to cover the Queens Road area and the other for the Evelina Road area. I'm not sure if they've started yet, but since this lack of staff has been the reason given for the lack of progress I hope that we will start to see some action.

The other good news is that a contract has been let for new lighting for a swathe of Nunhead. The focus is on the estates on the southside of Evelina Road, eg the Tappesfield, Barset and Buchan estates, where the lighting is extremely old and dim (it's still the old orange kind). Neighbouring streets such as Nunhead Grove and Gibbon Road will also be included. That work should start soon (but that's council soon, so could be a while yet).

Slightly worrying news is that a restructuring of the council's Regeneration Department means that the Renewal Team is being split in two, with officers dealing with housing renewal grants continuing to report to Housing Regeneration, but those working on regeneration of shopping area moving to the Peckham Program regeneration team. I can see the sense of this in theory, but I'm concerned it could result in more delays as new managers review plans. I spoke to the Head of the Peckham Program last night and he's agreed to arrange a presentation for the next community council meeting and a longer briefing session for councillors. I'll post again when I have more news.

Renewal Area Stalled?

At the beginning of the month I finally pinned down the Nunhead & East Peckham Renewal Team to give them a good grilling.

The news is mixed. On the plus side the Bellenden Renewal project is just about polished off, so the team can now focus entirely on Nunhead and East Peckham. They also seem to be making reasonable progress with the street renewal project on Astbury Road and Colls Road which will see households who have opted in get new garden walls and a brickwork clean up. Low income households (defined as those on income support) will get additional help to bring their homes up to a decent standard including safety works such as rewiring and energy efficiency works like insulation and double glazing.

The other very good news is that the money for the project has been secured for the next three financial years.

On the downside the staffing problems have got even worse. The team is meant to have 10 people and currently there are only 5! An inability to fill vacancies has been a problem for the project ever since it started 2 years ago. The result is that lots of promises have been made, particularly to make improvements on Evelina Road and Queens Road, but very little if anything appears to have been done. I am now regularly asked by residents if the project has been cancelled.

Myself and my ward colleagues have raised this issue numerous time with questions at the Town Hall. The LibDem Executive Member responsible seems to be very pleased with himself for attending lots of committee meetings, but I'm left wondering why he doesn't spend some time sorting out the problems facing this project!

Nunhead Community Forum AGM + Renewal Area Update

Yesterday saw the biggest and best Nunhead Community Forum AGM to date. Last year around 35 people came, this year it was around 150.

The day kicked off with a report back from Chris Wilson, who chairs the forum. In the picture below he's at the mike with Cris Claridge, the forum's secretary, beside him. The forum's done a great job in the last year, with events such as the Older People's Day and the Nunhead Arts week, plus securing new notice boards and signs which will soon be appearing around the area.

The report was followed by elections to officer positions and appointments to the Executive Committee. Chris and Cris remain as chair and secretary whilst a number of new people join the executive committee. As a councillor I am a co-oped member of the exec.

After a break for lunch (provided by local resident Joan Murrell and Bajan Spice restaurant)
it was on to a Q&A session on the Renewal Area with council officers from the Renewal Team and the regeneration department on hand to answer resident's questions.

It was a bit of a battle of the t-shirts - as you can see all the officers were wearing Nunhead street sign t-shirts, whilst the Community Forum members (including me) were in NCF t-shirts.

The feedback from the residents was mixed (on the renewal plans, rather than the t-shirts). Some were concerned that the renewal area was too focused on helping a small group of people, whilst others felt that all the money should be spent on helping those most in need rather than doing up the area in general. Likewise some people were keen to see the area promoted as it's likely to increase the value of their homes and others were concerned that this will price people out of the area. The officers were also speaking to people individually (and videoing it) so I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone had to say.

Personally I think the council has probably got the balance about right. Nunhead could certainly do with some investment and promotion - particularly around Evelina Road which is already a great high street and with a little help could be a fantastic.

However, I also know that in Nunhead there are people, particularly older people, living in homes with leaking roofs, dangerous wiring and little or no insulation, who simply can't afford to get things fixed. I think it's right that as well as improving the area generally we should particularly help out our less fortunate neighbours with a home improvement grant or a low cost loan so that everyone can live in a decent, warm and safe home.

Renewal Area Update - Queens Road

Queens Rd Walkabout
Originally uploaded by Fiona Colley.

It's been a busy couple of days for the Renewal Team (see Renewal Area category in sidebar for background). More on the Nunhead end in my next post...

On Friday the Renewal Team launched the Queens Road regeneration project with a tour of the area for officers from many different parts of the council and from various outside agencies.

Regenerating Queens Road is going to be very different from Evelina Road. There are already a lot of plans and proposals for the area such as

- the Cross River Tram at the library end
- the East London Line tube extension to Queens Rd Station
- the new flats and offices at Lugard Rd
- new shops and flats next to the station
- the demolition and subsequent redevelopment of the Wooddene

The renewal team have some money to spend on the street, but if we are really going to make any difference the council needs to have a vision for Queens Road and make sure all the projects are properly co-ordinated.

This walkabout was a good start to bring the various responsible people together. Unfortunately Transport for London (who run the tram and East London Line projects and manage the road itself) weren't present so we're going to have to get them down and do another tour.

Renewal Area Update July 06

Had a briefing from the Renewal Area team last night. I understand the team are readers of this blog - so Roger if I get anything wrong please use the comments to correct.

The project should see £14.5m spent on improving Nunhead & East Peckham over the next few years. Most of that will be spent on improving the most run down residential streets with some external works for all the houses on the street and grants for more major improvements (like double glazing, rewiring) for poor homeowners (mostly pensioners). The project will also see significant investment in Evelina Road, Queens Road and Meeting House Lane. More background in previous posts here and here.

(You could also check out my new categories links in the sidebar, with thanks to David Nicholson)

I've become rather frustrated with the project in recent months as progress has been much slower than I expected largely due to recruitment problems and also changes to government housing health & safety regulations. More info on this here, here and here.

Anyway, I feel a little more positive following last night's briefing. The team still only has six members of staff rather than 10, but the other 4 positions are all being advertised with the job descriptions for two key positions having been substantially rewritten. The team are hopeful this will now attract some high quality applicants.

There also seems to have been some progress on training staff in the new Housing Health & Safety Rating System. This is an essential element of assessing applications for home improvement grants and without trained staff none of the applications could be processed.

Other key issues

It looks likely that Astbury Road and Colls Road will be the first area to benefit from street works. There was a public meeting to discuss this in June and a further meeting which I hope will confirm this will be held in Sept or Oct. Further areas to benefit will be announced in due course, they hope the next area will be confirmed in Jan 07.

There was a (not very well advertised) meeting in June to discuss public involvement in the Evelina Road project. The project team also announced at that meeting that there was at least £500k earmarked for work on the street. It's really important that as many people as possible have there say on this as Nunhead Green and the shops on Evelina Road are the heart of Nunhead. It looks like the next discussion about this will be at the AGM of the Nunhead Community Forum on 30 September.

The Queens Road project will be one of the most complex. The team have great ambitions to make Queens Road world-class (although I'm not sure I really know what that means). There are already a great many projects going on around Queens Road - eg the demolition of the Wooddene Estate, rebuilding the shops around Queens Road Station, a neighbourhood renewal project on the Cossall & Brimmington Estates, Wandle Housing Association building new homes - so the first challenge will be to bring all the interested agencies and to try to get all these projects working together. I understand an event will be held in Sept/Oct.

And finally street lighting. This is the greatest source of frustration for me as installing £900k of street lighting was supposed to be the quick win - the piece of work the renewal team would deliver in the first year. We're over one year on and still no new street lights. The latest news is that the team now plan to spend about £1.5m over the next two years on new street lights. The detailed plans have been drafted and they hope they will be approved by the Director of Housing at the beginning of September.

Council Assembly 2 - Asking questions

Cllr Richard Thomas.

At Council Assembly each councillor can submit one question to an Executive Member (or chair of a committee - see below).

This month I submitted this question to Executive Member for Regeneration, Cllr Richard Thomas.

I am frequently told by officers that the reason why the Nunhead & East Peckham Renewal project is falling behind schedule is that they have been unable to fill six vacant positions. What steps are you taking to address this problem and ensure that the team is fully staffed as soon as possible?

I haven't got the answer electronically yet, but basically he confirmed that of the 10 posts in the project team 6 are vacant, although 2 of these are currently being covered by temporary staff. He claimed that they were making filling these posts a priority.

I'm not really convinced by this. These jobs have been vacant for months now and things that were promised to be delivered in the first year, like installing £900,000 worth of new street lighting, just haven't materialised.

I've also found out that they have no staff trained in the new Housing Health & Safety Rating System so they can't process applications from low income pensioners for home improvement grants. This may be partly the fault of civil servants in the ODPM, it seems they only published final details of the system in February when it was due to come into force in April. Still, we're into July now and it's about time the staff were trained.

So in my follow up question I told Cllr Thomas about this and asked if he'd met with the team himself yet (he's only been in the job a month) and if he was satisfied with the current situation. He admitted he hadn't met with them yet, but would be doing so soon.

Evelina Road Renewal Meeting 1 June 2006

Sorry for the late notice, but only just got this myself.

As previously discussed, the council is going to spend £14.5m over the next few years improving private housing and shopping areas in Nunhead & East Peckham. One of the areas due for improvement works is Evelina Road.

The team who are running the Evelina Road project are holding their first consultation meeting on Thursday 1st June, 6.30pm till 8.30pm at the Nunhead Green Community Centre, Nunhead Lane (opposite the nursery school). This will be an opportunity for local residents to get involved and have their say about what changes should be made to the street, so if you're interested in Evelina Road please come along.

Click here to see the poster for the meeting

Nunhead & East Peckham Renewal Area Update Feb 06

Unfortunately there isn't really any more firm news on the renewal area. There seem to be recruitment difficulties with the renewal team and the result is very slow progress. Last time I spoke to them they promised an update within the fortnight - but that was at the beginning of January. So this is all unconfirmed info at present but better than nothing I guess:

They will probably be putting in improved street lighting across the most or all of the area bounded by Gibbon Rd, Linden Grove and Evelina Rd (but not actually Evelina Rd just yet). This should be one of the first things they do, but given their current rate of progress I really wouldn't like to guess when that will actually be.

For this year the work on Evelina Rd/Nunhead Lane will probably consist wholly of consultation with residents and businesses to area what's going to be done. There needs to be some agreement on the style people want. At the moment the active residents mostly seem to want some kind of traditional Victorian style lamppost, shopfront restoration. Please let me know if you have any views on this.

This year should also see the first major residential street work. It looks like that will start on Astbury Road.

They should be installing CCTV on Meeting House Lane shortly. The area has big problems with drug dealing and prostitution so this is really essential.

Renewal Area to be confirmed?

Fingers crossed, but the proposals for a Renewal Area in Nunhead and East Peckham look set to become a reality. After a couple of years of lobbying the Executive decide on Monday whether or not the scheme will go ahead.

The officers are recommending that the Council goes ahead and is suggesting £14.5m of investment over 5 years, starting with £900,000 for lighting upgrades this year. The principle aim of the scheme is to improve the quality of the private sector housing in the area, but also to improve security (hence the lighting) and the shopping areas. It's a really exciting opportunity for Nunhead & East Peckham and I'm going to work closely with residents and officers to make sure we get the most out of it.

Renewal Area Declared

More good news for Nunhead. After much lobbying (and many delays) the Council has decided "in principle" to declare two Renewal Areas covering both Nunhead (south from Queens Rd down to Nunhead Cemetery) and East Peckham (north from Queens Rd up to the Old Kent Rd). This will focus on working with private home owners to bring their homes up to a decent standard and will particularly benefit elderly residents who own their homes, but don't have enough income to maintain them. There will be grant and loans and advice etc. At present the Council plans to focus this work on a few streets within the areas that they think are in the worst condition and where the owners are most in need of help. This covers the streets around Brayards Rd in the south area and two patches around Astbury Rd and Friary Rd in the north area.

The project will also work to bring environmental improvement to shopping areas like Evelina Rd, Queens Rd and Meeting House Lane.

The next step is statutory consultation on the plans (I think they'll be writing to all residents) and we've been promised detailed consultation with community groups such as the Nunhead Community Forum. Then a final decision on the areas and the work that'll be done should be taken in April. Hopefully we'll also find out how much money the council is going to commit to it (declaring an area is one thing, investing money is another).

In other good news, Lib-Dem Cllr Gavin O'Brien has resigned as the Executive Member for Housing. Officially he feels he just can't give the job the time he would like to due to other commitments. I just hope they find someone better to replace him as he has left the department in a complete mess.

Since the re-organisation of the housing offices on 1 Jan my housing casework has shot up, it seems that tenants often can't get through to report repairs and if they do manage to talk to someone they are being misdirected or given appointments that aren't kept - I have a feeling my surgery tonight is going to be a busy one.