Just wanted to flag up two sites I have recently added to the 'Local Links' section of the blog.
The first is Lewisham LINK (Local Involvement Network) the successor to PALS, what was the patient advice and liaison service, ie the body for hospital patients and other healthcare users to make their views/concerns known. It says it is "an inclusive network to enable people and organisations in Lewisham to have a say and influence the planning, commissioning and delivery of health and social care services to improve the health and well being of patients and service users". It is being run by Parkwood Healthcare and based at Ladywell Leisure Centre.
The second is to the Ladywell Assembly page on the Council's website, which gives details of our next ward assembly (January 20th), as well as the ward priorities, minutes of previous meetings, the localities fund spending etc.
Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Be a Councillor!
London Councils has launched a new website, 'Be a councillor!' that aims to raise awareness of the role of local councillors, and encourage more people to consider standing in the next borough elections in May 2010. The website is part of a project that will also involve a London-wide poster campaign, newspaper advertising and locally, a stall at Lewisham People's Day.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Brief report back on Ladywell Ward Meeting 25th October
Haven't had a chance to post since the ward meeting last Thursday, but very briefly; there was a reasonable turn-out considering the fairly grotty weather, we discussed the various proposals for spending the £10,000 localities fund and there seemed to be support from those present for spending a considerable part of this year's fund on youth projects. More details to follow when we have finished looking into costings, other potential sources of funding for some of the proposals etc. Some of those present also suggested that when we move to the ward assembly system from next year (replacing the Area Forums), we have at least one meeting per year on a 3-ward basis as before, to look at issues within the wider area.
Monday, October 22, 2007
New Young Mayor of Lewisham
On Thursday I went along to the reception and announcement of the results for the Young Mayor of Lewisham elections. The turnout, at 45%, was significantly above that of local council elections, with some schools such as Addey & Stanhope achieving a turnout of 85%. It was great to see so much enthusiasm from all those involved.I sat next to the Mum of one of the candidates, who told me she “would be glad when it was all over“ so her son could “get back to revising for his GCSEs” which he was taking in a month. When her son, Jason, then went on to win (by a significant margin, considering there were 18 candidates), she was of course delighted and very proud!
Congratulations to new Young Mayor Jason Cole, who is a pupil at Crofton School, and Deputy Young Mayor Naz Ramadan, from Sydenham School. Justin ran on a manifesto which promised to make today’s adults and leaders listen to young people’s concerns and commit to dealing with the issues closest to their hearts. Over the next year Jason will work with his team of Young Advisors and has a £25,000 budget to spend on youth-orientated schemes. (and he won’t be put under undue pressure to do stuff when he has his exams coming up!).
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Reminder: Area Forum Monday 30th April, 7.30pm
Just a quick reminder that the area forum for Brockley, Crofton Park and Ladywell is taking place tomorrow (Monday), 7.30pm at St Andrews Church, Brockley Road.
The first part of the meeting will focus on community safety (how the Safer Neighbourhood teams are working), then there will be time for general Q&A to councillors. We would also like to hear residents' views on how to improve community engagement.
Hope to see you there.
The first part of the meeting will focus on community safety (how the Safer Neighbourhood teams are working), then there will be time for general Q&A to councillors. We would also like to hear residents' views on how to improve community engagement.
Hope to see you there.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Coming up this week . . .
Lewisham Draft Regeneration Strategy
All being well, on Tuesday I will be confirmed as the new chair of the council's Sustainable Development Select Committee, taking over from Darren. Tuesday's meeting has been called to scrutinise the draft of the Lewisham Regeneration Strategy, before it goes to Mayor and Cabinet. If it is approved by Mayor & Cabinet, it will then go out to public consultation before a final version is adopted in six months or so.
Travellers' Site Relocation/Ladywell Day Centre Sports Hall
Mayor and Cabinet meeting on Wednesday will consider a report on possible sites to relocate the existing travellers' site from Thurston Road. Last summer the council submitted a planning application to move the travellers' site to Dressington Avenue, which would have involved demolishing the sports hall at Ladywell Day Centre. Assuming the report is approved at Wednesday's meeting, that is no longer the plan, and two alternative sites are now being considered; the former Watergate School site in Church Grove, and the Lorry Park behind Laurence House in Catford.
The report states
"During 2006 a possible replacement site was identified that is currently occupied by a sports hall plus adjoining land adjacent to Ladywell Day Centre. Use of this site would require the re-provision of services provided from the sports hall in alternative locations. Consultation was carried out from 18 November to 8 December 2006 with users of the sports hall and other interested groups and the results are set out in Appendix 1. The consultation examined the needs of users of the sports hall, the possible alternative locations for each user group and the associated service and cost implications of providing alternative venues for users.
The consultation concluded that although it may be possible to relocate all the existing users of the gymnasium, the alternatives would present significant difficulties in terms of service to users, many of whom are disabled, and cost. For example, the sports hall is used by 15 user groups comprising 152 service users and over half of the service users are over 65 years of age. It is not therefore proposed to pursue use of this site as a replacement for Thurston Road."
What the report glosses over was the failure to carry out adequate consultation with residents and sports' hall users before the planning application was submitted. Hopefully lessons have been learnt, proper consultation will be carried out this time and a high-quality new travellers' site can be built before the deadline to vacate the Thurston Road site comes. I also hope that assuming the future of the sports hall at Ladywell Day Centre is now more secure, we can start looking at how the local community can make greater use of the facilities there.
Directly Elected Mayor
An EGM (extraordinary general meeting) of full council has been called for this Wednesday by councillors from all the opposition parties, to consider a motion about changing the existing directly elected mayor system in the borough. The motion states:
“This Council notes that in October 2001 there was a referendum in Lewisham to consider the model of local government to be adopted in the Borough. The result was that 16,822 residents voted in favour of an elected Mayor and 15,914 voted against. The turnout was 18 per cent.
Council believes that after five years of the current system the people of Lewisham should now have the opportunity to consider whether an Elected Mayor is the best method of delivering local government within the Borough.
Council requests the Chief Executive to start the statutory consultation and to report back to the Council at the earliest opportunity on the outcome, so that the Council can consider whether to move to a referendum if the outcome of the consultation supports change.”
However, we have been advised by the Council's legal team that if the Local Government Bill currently going through parliament becomes law, it is going to be impossible for us to change the directly elected mayor system until 2011 at the earliest and arguably we would be spending money consulting on something that we couldn't then implement. If the bill goes through parliament, local authorities will be stuck with a choice of just 3 models for the executive, all involving a 'strong' leader elected for 4 years with powers similar to that of the existing directly elected mayor. Amendments to Wednesday's motion are likely, I think!
All being well, on Tuesday I will be confirmed as the new chair of the council's Sustainable Development Select Committee, taking over from Darren. Tuesday's meeting has been called to scrutinise the draft of the Lewisham Regeneration Strategy, before it goes to Mayor and Cabinet. If it is approved by Mayor & Cabinet, it will then go out to public consultation before a final version is adopted in six months or so.
Travellers' Site Relocation/Ladywell Day Centre Sports Hall
Mayor and Cabinet meeting on Wednesday will consider a report on possible sites to relocate the existing travellers' site from Thurston Road. Last summer the council submitted a planning application to move the travellers' site to Dressington Avenue, which would have involved demolishing the sports hall at Ladywell Day Centre. Assuming the report is approved at Wednesday's meeting, that is no longer the plan, and two alternative sites are now being considered; the former Watergate School site in Church Grove, and the Lorry Park behind Laurence House in Catford.
The report states
"During 2006 a possible replacement site was identified that is currently occupied by a sports hall plus adjoining land adjacent to Ladywell Day Centre. Use of this site would require the re-provision of services provided from the sports hall in alternative locations. Consultation was carried out from 18 November to 8 December 2006 with users of the sports hall and other interested groups and the results are set out in Appendix 1. The consultation examined the needs of users of the sports hall, the possible alternative locations for each user group and the associated service and cost implications of providing alternative venues for users.
The consultation concluded that although it may be possible to relocate all the existing users of the gymnasium, the alternatives would present significant difficulties in terms of service to users, many of whom are disabled, and cost. For example, the sports hall is used by 15 user groups comprising 152 service users and over half of the service users are over 65 years of age. It is not therefore proposed to pursue use of this site as a replacement for Thurston Road."
What the report glosses over was the failure to carry out adequate consultation with residents and sports' hall users before the planning application was submitted. Hopefully lessons have been learnt, proper consultation will be carried out this time and a high-quality new travellers' site can be built before the deadline to vacate the Thurston Road site comes. I also hope that assuming the future of the sports hall at Ladywell Day Centre is now more secure, we can start looking at how the local community can make greater use of the facilities there.
Directly Elected Mayor
An EGM (extraordinary general meeting) of full council has been called for this Wednesday by councillors from all the opposition parties, to consider a motion about changing the existing directly elected mayor system in the borough. The motion states:
“This Council notes that in October 2001 there was a referendum in Lewisham to consider the model of local government to be adopted in the Borough. The result was that 16,822 residents voted in favour of an elected Mayor and 15,914 voted against. The turnout was 18 per cent.
Council believes that after five years of the current system the people of Lewisham should now have the opportunity to consider whether an Elected Mayor is the best method of delivering local government within the Borough.
Council requests the Chief Executive to start the statutory consultation and to report back to the Council at the earliest opportunity on the outcome, so that the Council can consider whether to move to a referendum if the outcome of the consultation supports change.”
However, we have been advised by the Council's legal team that if the Local Government Bill currently going through parliament becomes law, it is going to be impossible for us to change the directly elected mayor system until 2011 at the earliest and arguably we would be spending money consulting on something that we couldn't then implement. If the bill goes through parliament, local authorities will be stuck with a choice of just 3 models for the executive, all involving a 'strong' leader elected for 4 years with powers similar to that of the existing directly elected mayor. Amendments to Wednesday's motion are likely, I think!
Catch up - conference, pensions, Barcelona
Been rather silent on the blogging front lately; had a busy couple of weeks before Easter with meetings most evenings, then Green Party Conference in Swansea, then loads more meetings, including council AGM, then a quick trip to visit my newborn niece (Jessica Rose) in Suffolk and to help out Norwich Greens with their election campaign for a day, then Barcelona for a week over Easter to visit Nigel. Been catching up on things since then and normal blogging service will resume shortly!
Green Party Conference
Green Party Conference was interesting, with debate on the Severn Barrage/Swansea Lagoon (what with it being in Swansea), the leadership debate (should we have one or not and if so, what powers, if any, should they have), we updated our international policy (which had some embarrassingly out-of-date bits about the handover of Hong Kong etc in it), I went to a fringe about voting systems and PR (proportional representation) led by Malcolm Clark from Make Votes Count, helped lead a 'green bloggers' fringe with Jim and Natalie (was nice to meet a few fellow green bloggers I hadn't met before such as Philip and Jim too). Was very inspired by a panel discussion about environmental education and sustainability in schools - Wales, in particular Swansea, seems to be streets ahead of England in some ways with this (every school in Swansea gets their recycling collected for free, unlike in Lewisham). Also found out a bit more about Transition Towns. Anyway conference was weeks ago and it was amply covered at the time here and here.
Pensions Investment Committee
Couple of interesting meetings before Easter. Lewisham Council's Pensions Investment Committee meeting (of which I'm a member) had presentations from Fair Pensions and the Local Authority Pensions Fund Forum (LAPFF) at my request. The committee agreed to join the LAPFF and to survey members of the pension fund (of which there are lots, as the council is the largest employer in Lewisham) about their views on socially responsible investment. As trustees of the pension fund we have a primary fiduciary duty, which means we must place the financial interests of the fund and its members above all else. However, Alex van der Velden from Fair Pensions argued that we would be failing to do this if we didn't scrutinise companies' behaviour on social and environmental issues, as companies risk losing money through reputation damage if they don't take account of 'ethical' issues (eg an oil company with poor safety standards being responsible for an environmentally-catastrophic leak, a sportswear company found to be sourcing its clothes from sweatshops or an arms company revealed to be bribing corrupt officials in dodgy regimes to buy its goods).
We also have a duty to take into consideration the moral views of our members, so if, for example, 90% of respondants to our survey said they didn't want us to invest their pension money in tobacco, there would be grounds for us to disinvest. Anyway, I was pleased with the outcome of the meeting - while the pension fund continues to invest in sectors I'd rather my pension didn't invest in, I think joining the LAPFF and surveying members' views are both steps in the right direction.
Mayor's Commission on Empowering Communities and Neighbourhoods
Another meeting before Easter worth mentioning was the Mayor's Commission on Empowering Communities and Neighbourhoods (catchy title, huh?). After a few meetings hearing evidence and discussing communities and neighbourhoods in general, we are now looking at the nitty gritty of how we would like to change the way the council and elected representatives engage with residents, and in particular whether to change the existing area forums. General consensus at the meeting seemed to be to move towards regular ward based forums, with larger spending powers, rather than the existing 3-ward forums. I think this is a good idea and look forward to seeing what is proposed.
Barcelona
Did the journey by train again, which was fine, but cost me an arm and a leg as all the cheaper tickets had sold out weeks in advance. Once again I was very impressed by how cyclist-friendly the city is. They have just launched a new bike hire scheme, Bicing, to encourage people to cycle around the city. Basically, you pay €24 subscription for the year, then you can borrow a bike for only 30 cents for half an hour, rising to €3 an hour after 2 hours (the scheme is designed for short journeys of less than an hour around the city, you use one of the other bike hire shops for longer periods). They are still rolling the service out, but there will soon be 100 bike stations around the city with 1,500 bikes to hire. I think how it works is that when you register and get your card, which unlocks the bikes, you give your credit card details and are charged according to your use. Sounds like an excellent idea - we should have a similar scheme in London! (Darren, Jenny - Green group budget proposal for next year?!)
Green Party Conference
Green Party Conference was interesting, with debate on the Severn Barrage/Swansea Lagoon (what with it being in Swansea), the leadership debate (should we have one or not and if so, what powers, if any, should they have), we updated our international policy (which had some embarrassingly out-of-date bits about the handover of Hong Kong etc in it), I went to a fringe about voting systems and PR (proportional representation) led by Malcolm Clark from Make Votes Count, helped lead a 'green bloggers' fringe with Jim and Natalie (was nice to meet a few fellow green bloggers I hadn't met before such as Philip and Jim too). Was very inspired by a panel discussion about environmental education and sustainability in schools - Wales, in particular Swansea, seems to be streets ahead of England in some ways with this (every school in Swansea gets their recycling collected for free, unlike in Lewisham). Also found out a bit more about Transition Towns. Anyway conference was weeks ago and it was amply covered at the time here and here.
Pensions Investment Committee
Couple of interesting meetings before Easter. Lewisham Council's Pensions Investment Committee meeting (of which I'm a member) had presentations from Fair Pensions and the Local Authority Pensions Fund Forum (LAPFF) at my request. The committee agreed to join the LAPFF and to survey members of the pension fund (of which there are lots, as the council is the largest employer in Lewisham) about their views on socially responsible investment. As trustees of the pension fund we have a primary fiduciary duty, which means we must place the financial interests of the fund and its members above all else. However, Alex van der Velden from Fair Pensions argued that we would be failing to do this if we didn't scrutinise companies' behaviour on social and environmental issues, as companies risk losing money through reputation damage if they don't take account of 'ethical' issues (eg an oil company with poor safety standards being responsible for an environmentally-catastrophic leak, a sportswear company found to be sourcing its clothes from sweatshops or an arms company revealed to be bribing corrupt officials in dodgy regimes to buy its goods).
We also have a duty to take into consideration the moral views of our members, so if, for example, 90% of respondants to our survey said they didn't want us to invest their pension money in tobacco, there would be grounds for us to disinvest. Anyway, I was pleased with the outcome of the meeting - while the pension fund continues to invest in sectors I'd rather my pension didn't invest in, I think joining the LAPFF and surveying members' views are both steps in the right direction.
Mayor's Commission on Empowering Communities and Neighbourhoods
Another meeting before Easter worth mentioning was the Mayor's Commission on Empowering Communities and Neighbourhoods (catchy title, huh?). After a few meetings hearing evidence and discussing communities and neighbourhoods in general, we are now looking at the nitty gritty of how we would like to change the way the council and elected representatives engage with residents, and in particular whether to change the existing area forums. General consensus at the meeting seemed to be to move towards regular ward based forums, with larger spending powers, rather than the existing 3-ward forums. I think this is a good idea and look forward to seeing what is proposed.
Barcelona
Did the journey by train again, which was fine, but cost me an arm and a leg as all the cheaper tickets had sold out weeks in advance. Once again I was very impressed by how cyclist-friendly the city is. They have just launched a new bike hire scheme, Bicing, to encourage people to cycle around the city. Basically, you pay €24 subscription for the year, then you can borrow a bike for only 30 cents for half an hour, rising to €3 an hour after 2 hours (the scheme is designed for short journeys of less than an hour around the city, you use one of the other bike hire shops for longer periods). They are still rolling the service out, but there will soon be 100 bike stations around the city with 1,500 bikes to hire. I think how it works is that when you register and get your card, which unlocks the bikes, you give your credit card details and are charged according to your use. Sounds like an excellent idea - we should have a similar scheme in London! (Darren, Jenny - Green group budget proposal for next year?!)
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Lords Reform
7th March 2007 has been declared Lords Reform Day, as it is the day when MPs are due to vote on various proposals for reforming the House of Lords. Unlock Democracy is calling for MPs to support a bicameral parliament and the removal of the hereditary peers, and to specifically back the proposals for a 60% and 80% elected second chamber. Sounds good to me, though a second chamber elected under PR would be even better and boost our chances of getting more Greens into the second chamber! Natalie has a suggested letter to lobby your MP with on her blog. Further details here. Anyone know where Joan Ruddock stands on this one? I'm guessing she is in favour of an elected second chamber?!
Monday, February 19, 2007
Brockley, Crofton Park and Ladywell Area Forum
Provisional details for the next Brockley, Crofton Park and Ladywell Area Forum:
Monday 30th April, 7.30pm, St Andrew's Church, Brockley Road.
Focus will be on community safety (the development of the Safer Neighbourhood teams), with time for general Q&A to councillors and poll of views on future format of area forums (these are under review at the moment and being discussed on the 'Mayoral Commission on Empowering Communities and Neighbourhoods' that I'm on).
Monday 30th April, 7.30pm, St Andrew's Church, Brockley Road.
Focus will be on community safety (the development of the Safer Neighbourhood teams), with time for general Q&A to councillors and poll of views on future format of area forums (these are under review at the moment and being discussed on the 'Mayoral Commission on Empowering Communities and Neighbourhoods' that I'm on).
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