Surgery times and contact details, whinge about BT

One of the things that's been frustratingly slow in the first few weeks as councillor is the time it's taken to get the technological stuff sorted, ie e-mail and phone line. We wanted to hit the ground running and get our surgery and contact details out asap after the election, but have had to wait ages for access to council e-mail and to get the phone lines installed. Obviously council officers weren't able to order anything until after May 4th, then it takes an annoying length of time for everything to fall into place. I collected the laptop from council on Thursday and was finally able to access my e-mail (with a few casework e-mails I hadn't been able to access), but BT didn't turn up to install the ADSL line at home on Friday as arranged (having turned up unannounced a couple of weeks ago when I was at work!). V irritating because we have leaflets ready to deliver and it makes us look like we are slacking off post-election, whereas we're at the mercy of BT. Ute and Mike are supposed to get their lines installed tomorrow, so fingers crossed that the engineer turns up, no idea yet when they'll come to do mine.

Anyway, end of whinge, here are our surgery details:
2nd Saturday of the month, 11am – 12.30pm
The Old Bothy, Hilly Fields (next to the bowling green)

4th Saturday of the month, 11am – 12.30pm
St Andrew’s Church, corner of Brockley Road and Wickham Road

In addition, we will be holding area based street surgeries on the 3rd Saturday of every month. The idea behind the surgery in the Old Bothy is that it coincides with the farmers' market.

Our e-mail and tel nos, although not yet fully up and running, will be:
Cllr Mike Keogh tel: 020 8690 6130
e-mail: cllr_mike.keogh@lewisham.gov.uk
Cllr Sue Luxton tel: 020 8690 0905
e-mail: cllr_sue.luxton@ lewisham.gov.uk
Cllr Ute Michel tel: 020 8691 5212
e-mail: cllr_ute.michel@lewisham.gov.uk

Went to the opening night of the Brockley Max festival on Friday, where my friend from work, James D was playing in his band the Blinis. V good, hope to go to a few other events over the next week.

T-mobile have lodged another planning application to put a mobile mast on the water tower on Dressington Avenue. Mike and I are both on planning committees so all planning enquiries re this or other applications should be addressed to Ute, as Mike and I can't comment.

Newsshopper are running a feature on councillors who blog and their photographer Jo came round to take photos of me plus laptop on Friday, so I may be in the paper next week. Felt sorry for Jo, who has the task of getting photos of every new councillor in Lewisham, Greenwich, Bromley, Bexley, Lambeth and Southwark for their photo archive!