Brockley Society Meeting about Gordonbrock School

Brockley Society, at the request of a number of parents of Gordonbrock Primary School, has agreed to hold an extra meeting to discuss their legal action against the Council with regards to the planning application for the school. Their invitation reads:

"OPEN MEETING: Proposals for refurbishment of Gordonbrock School. Tuesday 4 May, 8pm-9.30pm, Crofton Park Baptist Church, Brockley Grove (cnr Huxbear Street), SE4 1EA.

Brockley Society would like to present its alternative proposals to those of Lewisham council for the modernisation of Gordonbrock School. Working with a number of Gordonbrock parents and our architect, we have sought to demonstrate that there are alternatives to demolition and rebuilding, still achieving all of the goals for the school, and within budget.

We will explain why we intervened, and why so late. There will also be an opportunity for all interested parties to express their views and ask questions. All welcome."

A number of parents from Gordonbrock have asked that the motion below be put to the meeting:

"In light of the current economic climate and the certainty that budget for a school refurbishment shall be lost should work not commence this financial year, the Brockley Society shall offer no further objections to the redevelopment of Gordonbrock School".

I'm anticipating a lively and well-attended meeting, and (optimistically perhaps) hoping some kind of common ground can be found within the community.

Prendergast Hilly Fields Plans - what did you think?

I popped in to look at the proposals for Prendergast Hilly Fields at the drop in session this evening. I was quite favourably impressed, but would be keen to hear what others who saw the plans thought.

I suspect the two potentially most contentious aspects of the plans will be where to place the temporary classrooms while the lower site is decanted and rebuilt, and the extra height of the lower site buildings. The two options proposed for the decant classrooms are either to put them on two of the tennis courts for the year while the work takes place, or to put them on the land adjacent to the upper site school, near the basketball courts. With the first option, the community would lose the use of the tennis courts for a year, but potentially at the end of it, get brand new, resurfaced tennis courts. The second option would involve temporary loss of green space adjacent to the school but not, I'm told, involve needing to remove any mature trees. I need to go and take a look at the site to get a clear picture of it in my mind, and would be keen to hear the community's views on this, and the thoughts of Friends of Hilly Fields.

I like the idea of having one, high quality building on the lower site rather than the mish mash that is currently there. The proposals involve keeping the existing sports hall, but building around and above it. The new buildings would be 4 storeys in the middle and 3 storeys at the sides adjacent to the neighbouring houses. The extra height would enable the sixth form to grow, while the plans also include more landscaped outside space in the middle, with a sightline from Hilly Fields through to the cemeteries, 'connecting the two green spaces'.

The boundary treatment would be a combination of brick wall and quality railings, rather than the rather tatty chainlink fence currently there. There haven't decided on the exact materials they plan to use the the building itself, but are looking at brick, rather than a rendered finish, which should age better. The architect seemed keen to go for a brick colour that contrasted with the neighbouring red brick buildings on Adelaide Avenue rather than trying to match it.

I was keen to see how they envisaged the new building relating to Ivy Road, which has been problematic in the past. The windows of the exam hall that face onto Ivy Road have been boarded up almost since it was built, due to vandalism problems. Ivy Road is looking better these days, with less graffiti and flytipping, but there is still limited footfall along there and security is an issue. They seemed to be planning a delivery entrance on the Ivy Road side, and a bit more landscaping, rather than just the back wall of buildings, but it's a tricky issue to resolve.

The flat roofs on the new building incorporate both brown and green living roofs, which if done properly could look good from Hilly Fields, and while they were uncertain how they would attain the 20% renewables target, were looking at using air source heat pumps and solar thermal on the roof. Previous BSF schools in Lewisham have tended to go for biomass boilers, as they proved the most cost-effective way to meet the 20% target, but now there are concerns over the impact these may have on air quality and they are looking at other options. Solar thermal is not normally a viable option at schools, as there isn't a huge demand for hot water, but if the kitchens and sports facilities are all on the lower site, this may be more viable.

The changes to the top site building are fairly minor and, as far as I can tell involve adding a lift inside the main building, moving the kitchens down to the lower site to create more space next to the main hall, demolishing the rather tatty white toilet block and replacing it with outside space, and, rearranging some of the classrooms to create extra space.

The project team are looking to submit the planning application in April with a view to getting planning permission over the summer and starting the rebuild/refurb in the Autumn term. I would be keen to hear your views on the plans, if you saw them. I've asked if they can also be made available online for those who were unable to attend the drop-in session.

Prendergast Hilly Fields - drop in session to view designs for rebuild/refurb, Monday 29th March

Gordonbrock Primary isn't the only school in Ladywell earmarked for rebuild/refurb plans - Prendergast Hilly Fields is also due to have millions of pounds spent on it, under the BSF (Building Schools for the Future) programme. The plans involve demolishing and rebuilding the existing buildings at the lower site on Adelaide Avenue, and refurbing the existing listed building on Hilly Fields "in line with English Heritage guidelines".

A drop in session has been arranged for local residents to see the designs and meet the project team on Monday 29th March, from 5-8pm, in the hall on the Adelaide Avenue site.

I would urge people to go along and have their say. Let's see if this can be third time lucky, after the problems with both the Lewisham Bridge and Gordonbrock school projects. Done properly, Lewisham could make this an exemplar of how to refurbish a historical building to high modern standards of energy efficiency. As with the other BSF projects, the funding is PFI, so as we'll be paying through the nose for it for the next 25 years, let's at least make sure it's good.

New Schools Programme: could do better

The Sustainable Development committee, which I chair, has been carrying out a review of the extent to which the ongoing BSF (Building Schools for the Future) programme is sustainable. As well as the more obvious things like solar panels on roofs, we've been looking at things like community access to buildings out of hours, school travel plans and the procurement process.

Members of the committee visited 3 recently-built schools in the borough (Prendergast Ladywell Fields, Catford High and Sedgehill) and last week I presented our interim recommendations to the Mayor & Cabinet. Some of the recurring issues with these new schools are problems with ventilation (classrooms with windows that don't open and air conditioning that doesn't work), limited/no community use of buildings out of hours and ongoing issues with facilities management.

The article above from the South London Press has a bit more detail. Note to self: send a more flattering/photoshopped portrait photo to SLP for future use!

Gordonbrock Primary School - planning application submitted

A planning application has been submitted for the partial demolition and partial rebuild of Gordonbrock Primary School. The application can be viewed here. The plans are a revision of those submitted and passed back in 2005, before the project was shelved due to funding probems. I'm pleased that this is again now firmly back on the agenda and my understanding is that if planning permission is granted this Autumn, the school will be decanted and the rebuild start in January.

Part of the reasoning behind the rebuild is to enable the school to go from 2.5 form entry to 3 form entry, which as well as creating much needed extra primary school places, avoids the need to have classes with mixed age groups. I'm pleased that it's proposed to retain parts of the Victorian school building, that the awful portacabins in the playground that are long past their sell-by date will finally be going and of course that more, larger classrooms will be built.

Last week I went along to a drop-in session at the school to look at the plans. There were a number of positive aspects to them, with lots of outside play space, including provision for outdoor teaching areas and for the recently-acquired play equipment and raised borders to be incorporated into the new designs. One of the pupils asked the officer 'Are you going to cut down our trees?' and was assured that the trees would be retained, which is just as well, as this 9-year old looked ready for some direct action to protect them if the need arose!

However there were a number of aspects to the design which left me distinctly underwhelmed, in particular the wasted roof space, with no plans for either living roofs, solar panels, rainwater recycling or anything else that should frankly be standard in contemporary design. The school will be fulfilling its 20% renewables target with a biomass boiler - this seems to be the renewable energy source of choice for schools at the moment, (mostly on value for money grounds), which is good as far as it goes, but there are no plans to exceed the minimum requirement. I had expected to see a few other 'green gubbins', such as a few solar panels on the roofs, even if more for educational purposes, rather than making a significant contribution to the school's energy needs, but currently none are proposed.

Having just spent the past few months on the Sustainable Development Committee doing an in-depth review of home insulation within the borough (more on this soon), I had also expected the rebuild to incorporate some internal insulation of the Victorian buildings that are being retained, to bring them as close as possible to modern building requirements. Again, it doesn't seem to be on the cards. This looks like a missed opportunity to explore how to make our Victorian/Edwardian buildings in the borough more energy efficient, which will also be key to other school rebuilds/refurbs around the borough.

Having discussed various aspects of the design with the council officer leading on the project, as well as representatives from Bouyges, the PFI contractor, I was left with the impression that Gordonbrock was being short changed on sustainability due to cost restrictions. (Bouyges is the company behind the recent rebuild of Prendergast Ladywell Fields school, which personally I think is a distinct disappointment in sustainability terms.) Recycling is all well and good, but when you recycle building plans from 5 years ago, you need to ask what has moved on in that time and surely, sustainable design issues given the need to reduce our carbon emissions have leapt right up the global agenda in the past five years.

I don't wish to be overly negative as I want to wholeheartedly support the school rebuild, which parents, pupils and staff have been waiting for for a very long time now, but I fear that unless the contractors are pushed a bit further on the designs, Ladywell is going to get a good new primary school, with a much improved learning environment, but not the exemplar of sustainability we should be aiming for. Officers have promised to see what more can be done to address some of my concerns, so I await their feedback on these discussions and am hoping for a few improvements before this gets to planning committee stage.

Recent Mayor & Cabinet Decisions pertinent to Ladywell and Brockley

There were a number of decisions taken at Wednesday's Mayor & Cabinet meeting that I thought worth drawing to local residents' attention.

Streetscape improvements on cards for Brockley and Ladywell?
Item 6 of the agenda was about proposals for Lewisham's Local Implementation Plan (LIP), which is the plan for how to spend money allocated from Transport for London (TfL) within the borough.

I'm pleased that the proposals include funding ear-marked both for Ladywell Road and Brockley Road. The Ladywell proposals include the long overdue 'toucan' crossing on the east side of Ladywell Bridge, to make it easier for cyclists to get onto the Waterlink Way path (Lewisham Cyclists and local residents have been calling for this for years) as well as (hopefully) the chance to get the bigger streetscape improvements on Ladywell Road that Ladywell Society and more recently Ladywell Village Improvement Group (LVIG) have been calling for.

I know that representatives from LVIG have already had early discussions with highways with a view to ensuring that this is a community led project, rather than a highways consultation imposed from above, and we will be keeping a watching brief to ensure that remains the case. You may recall that the last Ladywell ward assembly allocated £10k of its money to fund urban design work to develop plans to improve Ladywell Road, so we now need to work with highways officers and LVIG to see how that can best be spent.

The proposals for Brockley include works around Brockley Cross area and the station, but also Brockley Road itself from Brockley Cross to Adelaide Avenue, though it's not clear exactly what shape these works will take yet, and whether it will just be the roads, or also the pavements and wider streetscape issues that get addressed. As a Ladywell ward councillor, I'm particularly interested in the stretch of Brockley Road from the junction with Wickham Road to Adelaide Avenue, but I suspect my colleagues in Brockley will be keeping a close eye on proposals for Brockley Cross and Coulgate Street.

You can read the report in full here (p9-12 have the Brockley and Ladywell details). Also worth noting are the significant sums involved in repairing and maintaining Victorian bridges within the borough, including a massive £500k to re-waterproof Ladywell bridge.

Youth Provision and 'Myplace' Funding
In another item on the Mayor & Cabinet agenda, which is disappointing for Ladywell (but positive for Sydenham) is the decision to focus the Council's bid for 'Myplace' funding for a youth centre in Sydenham Wells Park, rather than the project they had previously considered to bring Ladywell Playtower back into use. The report states:

"The proposed site for a Myplace application was identified through an analysis of current youth service provision, levels of deprivation, teenage pregnancy rates, anti-social behaviour and crime hotspots, and ongoing engagement with young people and key stakeholders.
6.2 Based on this, two sites came to the fore for potential development: the Playtower site in Ladywell and Wells Park Youth Hall in Sydenham. An exploration of these options concluded that a redevelopment of the Ladywell Playtower as a youth centre would not align with cross-Council strategies, and as a Grade II listed building, would prove too costly to refurbish."

The question now of course remains what will happen to Ladywell Playtower, when, and will some kind of community use be retained?

Gordonbrock Primary Rebuild
This was in the confidential part of the meeting as it was dealing with contracts and commercially sensitive data, so I can't say too much, but plans are proceeding with the proposed rebuild, with a view to decanting the school, and starting works in January, assuming all planning permissions and the decant site are ready by then. Part of the reasoning behind the rebuild is to increase it from 2.5 form entry to 3 form entry. My understanding is that one of the existing Victorian buildings will be incorporated into the new design.

Who do you want to see running Lewisham Schools?

Lewisham Council has recently announced two consultations on major changes to how a number of schools in Lewisham are run.

Goldsmiths Education Partnership - this proposal is asking for views on three schools in the north of the borough (Addey & Stanhope, Deptford Green and Crossways Academy) joining forces with Goldsmiths to form 'Goldsmiths Education Partnership'.
Catford High and Colfe's Education Partnership - this proposal is asking for views on Catford High and the fee-paying Colfe's School forming an 'education partnership' (while remaining as separate schools).

In both cases, the consultation period is short, and responses need to be received by 20th July for the Goldsmiths proposal and 22nd July for the Colfe's proposal.

Why is the Council making these proposals?
The arguments being put forward by officers and heads of these schools (and presumably with the support of Mayor & Cabinet, although it hasn't been formally discussed by them yet, as far as I know) is that this is the best way to achieve rapid improvements in these schools, and that the schools will benefit from the resources of Goldsmiths and Colfe's.

There has been no debate or vote taken at a Council level on either of these proposals, and they haven't been looked at by the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee yet.

And the other side of the argument?
I atttended a public meeting organised by the NUT and Defend Education in Lewisham about the Goldsmiths proposal earlier this week, which over 80 local residents, parents, teachers and trade union members took part in.

I don't think anyone at the meeting was opposed to closer links between the 3 schools and Goldsmiths, but there was considerable concern that the proposals would result in a reduction in community and parental say in how the schools are run.

Under the proposals, rather than each school having its own governing body, with a combination of local authority, parent and staff governors, there would be one overarching governing body.

Local blogger Transpontine has a good summary of what this would mean in the case of the proposed Goldsmiths Partnership:

"The Goldsmiths Education Partnership (GEP) will have two levels of governance - the GEP Trust itself and the federated governing body that will replace the three current school governing bodies. The Trust will have six trustees, three nominated in perpetuity by Goldsmiths and one each initially by the governing bodies of Deptford Green, Crossways and Addey & Stanhope Schools. Each of the three nominated by the present governing bodies will be replaced on resignation by a nominee of the federated governing body of the three schools.

There is no requirement that any of these Trustees will be parent governors or staff governors. In fact the proposal does not specify how many parent or staff governors there will actually be - though by definiton a single governing body for three schools will have less parents involved than three governing bodies. It is proposed that the Goldsmiths Education Partnership will nominate the majority of the governors to the governing body - so there is a circular process in which Goldsmiths dominates the Trust which in turn determines the majority of governors, who then nominate the non-Goldsmiths members of the Trust. The proposal does say that 'each school will be legally required to set up a Parent Council which governors must consult so that more parents can be involved than would usually sit on the governing bodies'. The problem is that being consulted is not the same as actually having seats at the table where decisions are taken.

The proposal also mentions that 'The Trust may include an additional partner from the public or private sector able to make a complementary contribution' and that this partner may also nominate one or two additional Trustees. Without knowing who this partner is it is difficult to say much more, but clearly this would build in an automatic majority for Goldsmiths and the partner on the Trust, further marginalising the already limited scope for parent governor influence on it."

I don't think anyone is arguing against improving schools, and building good links with other local institutions such as Goldsmiths, but not at the cost of reducing still further any democratic input that parents and the local community have into how our schools are run. What is basically being proposed is a hard federation, similar to what is proposed for the new school, and which we argued against, for the same reasons.

The Catford High/Colfe's proposal is slightly different. The consultation document states:

"Catford High School would be a Colfe’s Associate School. It would remain a state school and have its own governing body, constituted outside the requirements of The School Governance (Constitution) (England) Regulations 2007, to include the Head Teacher of Colfe’s, and to allow Colfe’s to appoint other governors to strengthen the governing body significantly. The reconstituted Catford Governing body would report into the main Colfe’s Board, which would have responsibility to steer it and offer advice. The Catford Governing Body would have representation on the main Colfe’s Board and would take account of its views in deciding the strategic direction of the school and in making key operational decisions. Catford High School would change its name to reflect its aspirations and the new partnership."

As I understand it, this proposal seems to be about rebranding Catford High by associating it with the name of a prestigious private school, and a small number of the most academically-gifted pupils from Catford High may get bursaries to study in the sixth form at Colfe's. A further argument put forward is that with the 'Goldsmiths Partnership' proposal and the Prendergast hard federation already agreed, Catford High will be left out in the cold and isolated if it doesn't jump into bed with Colfe's. The document doesn't say why Catford High couldn't work in close collaboration with any of the other schools in Lewisham, eg Forest Hill, Sedgehill, Sydenham or Northbrook. I'm really not convinced and am again concerned that it will result in less parental and community say in how the school is run, the perpetuation of an 'us and them' two-tier system and giving an elite, fee-paying school a big say in how a community school is run.

I'm deeply concerned by both of these proposals, and the Green Group will be submitting reponses to both consultations. Whatever your views, I would urge you to do the same and have your say. I am concerned that the timing of these consultations, just as schools are breaking up for the summer holidays, means they might slip through 'under the radar' of many local people and parents.

Lewisham Bridge School gets grade II listing

The architecture minister, Barbara Follett, has given Lewisham Bridge Primary School building grade II listed status. There is an article with further details of the grounds for listing it here. Some local residents will be pleased, while others, including I suspect Mayor Steve Bullock, will be tearing their hair out in exasperation.

If the Council decides to press ahead with plans for a new secondary school on the site, it will need to get listed building consent for demolition first. However I imagine that this announcement may well mean going back to the drawing board and the prospect of Lewisham getting a much-needed secondary school by September 2010, following many years of delays seems to be receding.

The primary school pupils, meanwhile, are due to start at their decant site, Mornington Centre, when they come back from the Easter break.

Planning Application for New School at Lewisham Bridge

The planning application for the proposed new 3-16 school at the site of the current Lewisham Bridge Primary School has now been submitted and can be found on the Council's planning portal.

The application is for full planning permission for "The redevelopment of Lewisham Bridge Primary School, Elmira Street SE13, to provide a part three/part four storey all-age school (ages 3 -16 years) and a two-storey sports hall, together with landscaping including play areas, provision of 96 cycle spaces and 16 parking spaces."

If you would like to comment on this application please send an email to planning@lewisham.gov.uk including the Application Number (DC/09/70671/X ), your name, address, comment and reason for interest, before 17th February.

Some artist impressions from the developer's application are shown here (as always with artist impressions, they should be treated with caution. The one picture at the bottom makes it look like there will be a grassy path with landscaping leading up to the school, but of course that is the existing Cornmill Gardens and the school itself is in the background.)

I think it will probably go to a strategic planning committee, but just in case it comes to my planning committee, I need to be careful what I say and to keep an open mind at this point about the specifics of the planning application. However a few general thoughts on the proposals:

• It's not an ideal site, but we need a new secondary school and there is no other obvious, well-located site available to the Council within the timescale it needs to deliver a new secondary school (ie a few years ago). In my opinion it is a much better site for a secondary school than the Ladywell Leisure Centre site previously proposed (not on a busy main road, slightly closer to the north of the borough where the need for secondary school places is greatest, very close to public transport hubs).
• It is a small site for a secondary school, but this is inner-city London and unfortunately, we don't have sites with rolling playing fields around here to choose from. Other schools, such as Northbrook and Addey & Stanhope are on similarly constrained sites (I think this site is actually bigger than these two). The current site is arguably under-used, ie the school is big enough for a 3-form entry primary but it has for a number of years only had 1 and a half-form entry.
• Greens, along with the Socialists and other parties, called for a community school, ie one run by the local authority, but this was blocked by education minister Ed Balls, and Mayor Steve Bullock backed down on this rather than put up a fight and further delay the new school. We could argue about the pros and cons of this for ages, but given that there is unfortunately little imminent prospect of a Green or Socialist government, only a neo-liberal government (be it Tory or Labour) which supports acadamies etc, we may just have to accept that as a battle we can't currently win. Prendergast has an established and generally good reputation in the borough and is now conforming to the borough's admissions policy.
  
• Like all the other schools being built under the BSF (Building Schools for the Future) programme, it will be built using PFI (private finance initiative) money, ie on tick and we'll be paying it back over the next 25 years. Not something Greens support, but again, the funding of choice of the current government.
  
• There have been and will be local concerns about the extra pressure on surrounding roads due to the increase in pupil numbers, and the cumulative effect of this, alongside the proposed developments at Loampit Vale, Lewisham Gateway and Thurston Road. This is an issue that the highways officers will have to address when making their recommendations to the planning committee, and the school will need to demonstrate that it has a robust school travel plan which will do everything it can to encourage pupils and staff to walk, cycle or take public transport to school. It is a well-located site, near to cycle routes, buses, the DLR and the train station.
  
• There will be inconvenience to existing pupils, staff and parents while the current school is decanted to the Mornington Centre, but I think the impact of the decant will be considerably less than trying to build the new school in phases with the existing school still on site. A limited number of families and staff will be inconvenienced for a limited amount of time. The constraints that would have been placed on design and construction by trying to build a new school with the existing school on site would, I believe, have resulted in a far inferior design and much greater inconvenience to many. That said, much of my own primary education was spent in portakabin classrooms and between several different sites as the school was being changed, and to be honest, we adapted.
• Not building a new school would mean that many Lewisham children would have to commute outside the borough or to the other end of the borough to get to school, as many already do.
  
• The flipside of this of course if that in reducing a primary school down from 1 and a half-form entry to one-form entry, while at the same time there are plans for hundreds of new homes to be built next door, is that there may well in the future be a shortage of primary school places in central Lewisham.
  
• A number of people have expressed concern about how an all-through school will work, eg if there will be an increase in bullying etc. I'm no expert on this, but it seems to work with public schools, many schools elsewhere in Europe and the site is being designed in 3 distinct zones, with separate play areas and entrances for the nursery, primary and secondary school pupils. I taught at a 6-19 school in Minsk, Belarus, for a year, and it simply wasn't an issue - the younger children had separate play times to the older children, and each would look out for the other in corridors etc.
  
• I went along to the exhibition at Lewisham Bridge School before Christmas, to see the designs for the new school. I went with some trepidation and to be honest was pleasantly surprised with what was being proposed. I thought the designs made good use of the space available. I think we are now on something like the third version of the plans that have been to the design panel, the previous versions having been heavily criticised. I'm told that once the decision to decant rather than build in phases had been made, this freed the architects up to look at the whole site. Whereas earlier incarnations of the plans had considered having air-conditioned classrooms with windows that wouldn't open alongside the railway line, the current plans propose having the sports hall and dining area next to the railway, in a separate building (with covered walkways), which can be opened up for community access out of school hours.
• Off the top of my head I can't remember exactly what percentage of the site the footprint of the buildings comprise, but I did ask at the exhibition and if I recall correctly it was around 50%, ie a fair chunk of the site is ear-marked for outdoor play areas. Not as much as many of us would like, I'm sure, but not as bad as I feared it might be, given the site constraints. There is also the potential for the school to make use of the new leisure centre next door, when it is finally built.
  
• Sustainability issues: from what I have seen of the plans for the school so far, they seem to address sustainability issues much more comprehensively than the schools that have already been built/are being built under the BSF scheme. The applicants seem to be aiming for a BREEAM (BRE Environmental Assessment Method) excellent rating, which, if achieved, will be no mean feat. You can read the full preliminary BREEAM report here. It's disappointing that grey water recycling doesn't appear to have been incorporated into the plans, but designers seem confident that a substantial percentage of the school's energy needs will be met on site with a combination of solar panels and a biomass boiler.
  
• The Sustainable Development Committee, which I chair, is undertaking an ongoing review of the extent to which the BSF programme is addressing sustainability issues - not just looking at solar panels etc, but also wider issues around how the building meets the needs of the local community etc. We will be looking at the proposals for the new school at our meeting this Wednesday.
• Ladywell Society briefly discussed the new school plans at its meeting last Tuesday, and both Lewisham Central councillor Andrew Milton and I were there. A number of concerns were expressed, but members decided to go away and look at the proposals again in more detail before reaching a firm view either way.
• Biodiversity: efforts will need to be made to relocate the frogs, newts and other wildlife, which my ward colleague, Mike, who built the wildlife garden a few years back, assures me are still living in the wildlife garden. The time to do this is very soon, ie before they lay spawn this Spring.
  

Apologies for the rather long post; I've been mulling this over for a while as I realise it's quite a controversial issue and not everyone in the ward (or within my own party) will agree with the comments I've made here.

Catching up

Lots to catch up on from the past week or so. It already seems ages since I was in Cornwall over the bank holiday weekend!

Shop Local Bags now on sale
The 'Shop Local in Ladywell' bags are now on sale in lots of the shops in Ladywell. They cost £3.50 and seem to be selling well. Em from the drycleaners (pictured) sold her first 20 within a few days and is now on her second batch. There are only 300, so buy now while stocks last!

Good news for Gordonbrock?
Hopefully a rebuild or refurbishment of the school is now back on the cards, following earlier delays. A paper called "Primary Strategy for Change and Primary Capital Programme" went to Mayor & Cabinet last week and the proposals within in it include a new build (or refurbishment) of Gordonbrock Primary School and to expand it from two and a half form entry to 3-form entry. A rebuild of Brockley Primary School and to expand it from one-form entry to two is also planned. Basically, having got money for the BSF (Building Schools for the Future) programme for secondary schools, the Council is now hoping to get a second tranche of government funding bidding for primary schools.

Ladywell Leisure Centre Closed due to discovery of Legionnella Bacteria
You may have read elsewhere that Ladywell Leisure Centre has been temporarily closed due to the discovery of Legionnella, the bacteria that causes Legionnaires disease, being found in the showers. The discovery was made during regular checks and the pool closed as a precautionary measure. Ladywell ward councillors will be watching developments closely and hope that the pool will reopen as soon as it is safe to do so. I would hope that there will be a full investigation into why this has happened and what measures can be taken to prevent it from happening again.

New Playground for Foxborough Gardens?
On Tuesday I met with residents from Foxborough Gardens and representatives from Pinnacle, to discuss building a playground on the estate. Residents have organised a petition and collected 120 signatures calling for a playground. Many of the signatures were collected by the children themselves, and a number of them came along to the meeting. Their request seems perfectly reasonable to me, as there is no playground on the estate at the moment, but a grassy area that could be a suitable location for one. The timing for this may well be fortuitous as Lewisham has recently been awarded £1m to develop play areas. Hopefully a Foxborough Gardens TRA (tenants and residents association) is going to be formed which can then work with Pinnacle to look at ways of taking things forward.

Parking Problems on Marsala Road
On Wednesday I helped residents in Marsala Road collect signatures for a petition calling for a controlled parking zone in the area. There was a consultation on this back in 2005, but at the time there was a very low response rate from the road, and the Council decided not to proceed. The Council's position is that it will only introduce a CPZ where there is a clear demand for it from residents.

Since that time, the parking problems along the street have got progressively worse. Commuters park at one end for Ladywell Station and at the other end for Lewisham Town Centre and station. The introduction of the CPZ on Bertrand, Branscombe and the top part of Algernon Road has increased commuter parking on Marsala and Ellerdale Roads, and as Pinnacle are now cracking now on commuter parking on Viney Road, at residents' request, there is even more competition for spaces on Marsala and Ellerdale Roads. Some residents are putting out cones to reserve a space, which in turn irritates their neighbours.

I've been told a further consultation on CPZs will be carried out in Ladywell in January 2009, but I was also told it would happen last year and it didn't, so the residents' petition may serve as a timely reminder for the Deputy Mayor of the strength of residents' feelings on this issue. The consultation is likely to cover a number of streets, including Chudleigh Road, Malyons Road, Gillian Street as well as Marsala Road and Ellerdale Street. I don't have strong feelings either way about CPZs, and am happy to support whatever the outcome of the consultation is. There appears to be a majority of residents along Marsala Road in favour of a CPZ, but there would also need to be a majority in neighbouring streets in favour in order to proceed.

Ladywell Road to be part of new commercial recycling trial
The recycling team at the Council has successfully applied for funding to set up a pilot commercial recycling scheme using bags instead of bins in Ladywell and Blackheath. They hope to be able to start the scheme in August and will be promoting it in the next couple of weeks. Businesses will still need to pay for collections, but this will be at a rate that is 30% lower than refuse (as with the recycling bin scheme). One of the current barriers to businesses along Ladywell Road recycling, is that not all of them have outside space to store recycling bins. This scheme will enable businesses to use bags rather than bins, and will allows them to pay only for the waste that they produce, as opposed to paying for a standard sized bin each week.

I had a walkabout with officers from the recycling team last year, to discuss recycling with businesses along Ladywell Road. Although businesses were keen to recycle, the cost and bin storage space came up as issues at the time, so I'm delighted that the recycling team are trying to solve this with the pilot scheme. It is also now cheaper for businesses to recycle as one of the Green Group budget amendments from last year was to reduce the cost of commercial recycling (by raising the cost of general waste collection). Hopefully the combination of these two things (bags and lower cost) will enable many more businesses along Ladywell Road to start recycling their cardboard etc.

Ladywell Tavern re-opening soon
I bumped into one of the guys running Ladywell Tavern the other day and he told me that they will be opening very soon, following a few last minute hitches. They are still promising real ales, fine wine and good food, and the chef apparently used to work with Marco Pierre White, so fingers crossed.

New Cafe coming soon on Ladywell Road
Planning permission was granted last week for a new cafe at 48 Ladywell Road (what was the fruit & veg shop). If al goes to plan, the new cafe, which will be called Oscars and will specialise in ice-cream and home-made cakes, will open in about 4 weeks' time. It is being run by a local couple who want their cafe to have a community feel to it.

Ladywell Village Improvement Group AGM
LVIG's AGM is taking place at St Mary's Centre this Thursday (5th June) at 7.30pm. The agenda includes, among other things, the election of officers for the new group, ratification of the constitution, review of the survey results, feedback from Ladywell Fields Fun Day and the formation of working groups. All are welcome.

New Gates for Francis Drake Bowling Club
Brockley Central have beaten me to it on this one, but Francis Drake Bowling Club have got a lovely new gate, which I believe was designed by local artist Heather Burrell, who did the gates at the entrance to Hilly Fields from Eastern Road.

Finally, for those interested, Lewisham Green Drinks is taking place tomorrow (Monday), at Mr Lawrence Wine Bar, 389 Brockley Road, from 7pm onwards.

Clean and Green Schools Awards

A number of people have asked me recently whether I am enjoying being a councillor and my answer is generally something along the lines of 'most of the time, yes, but sometimes it's incredibly frustrating'. Yesterday afternoon was definitely one of the fun bits of being a councillor, when together with Deputy Mayor Heidi Alexander I was handing out the awards for the Clean and Green Schools awards.

Before the winners were announced, there was a brilliant and exceedingly loud workshop by Big Beat, a group who make music using percussion instruments made from junk. The councillors and officers present loved it and thought it would be a good to have a session before/after full council meetings, and the children seemed to enjoy it to.

Anyway, congratulations to all the schools who took part and won awards, though special mentions should go to St Stephen's CE and Stillness Infants, who scooped the top two prizes. In addition to recycling, the schools were involved with all sorts of projects including wildlife ponds, composting, reducing waste, freecycling, litter picks and litter surveys, collecting unwanted items to donate to charity, to designing 'rubbish monsters'. Very inspiring. I hope they go home and nag their families to do the same.

New School for Lewisham - a community school please, NOT another academy

New School for Lewisham - mininster for education refuses to give Lewisham exemption from competition process.

Following the Mayor's decision to build the new secondary school at Lewisham Bridge, instead of at Ladywell Leisure Centre, the council applied to the secretary of state for education for exemption from competition rules, ie permission to go ahead and build a community school instead of having to organise a competition allowing any organisation who wanted to bid to run the school as an academy, foundation school or similar. Unfortunately, the secretary of state has turned down that request. A report going to Mayor & Cabinet tonight outlines various options for the Mayor, including asking for permission for Lewisham to take part in the competition process for a new school (yes, that's right, ask for permission to build our own school in the borough), persuading Leathersellers (who run Prendergast School) to ask for exemption from the competition process allowing them to open a foundation school or going ahead with a full competition process in which any interested organisation could bid to run the new school (ie as an academy and anyone from McDonalds to a religious group could decide to bid for this).

I strongly believe the council should stand its ground and seek permission to bid for a community school. I'm not convinced the council should have to ask permission from the government for this at all, but that is how things stand (ironic in the same week when the government announced pilots to devolve more decision-making powers to local communities). There has been cross-party consensus within Lewisham Council on the desire for a new community school, not an academy or foundation school and I hope this continues to be the case. I believe a community school would best serve the needs of local people and I am concerned that an academy would be less accountable to local residents and the local authority.

Update (11.15pm): the Mayor approved the recommendations he was given in the report, which means that the council will see if Leathersellers get exemption from the competition process and then go for a foundation school. I would like to have seen the Mayor fight for what I thought was the consensus within the council and seek permission to bid for a community school as Haringey recently successfully did and won. Very disappointing.

Full Council, Questions to Mayor & Cabinet

Last Wednesday's full council meeting was unusually amicable, with an unprecedented display of councillors of all parties agreeing with each other, constructively amending motions to improve them and then unanimously supporting two motions; one calling on rail companies to put rubbish and recycling bins in all stations, and one calling on TfL to reconsider its plans dealing with the planned East London line closure and to meet with a cross-party group from Lewisham to discuss how to minimise disruption to commuters.

I submitted four questions to the deputy mayor, on lollipop people (or lack thereof recently for Gordonbrock School), to find out how many residents took the council up on its renewable energy grant last year (answer: 1), the borough's carbon footprint and the future of Ladywell Playtower. Responses below, FYI.

Question
Does the council have relief crossing patrol staff to cover when the normal lollipop men/women are off sick for extended periods?
Reply
No, the Council does not retain relief crossing patrol staff. All staff are retained as permanent employees and work at one location. Unfortunately there are occasions when extended absence means that sites will be unattended.

This was in response to concerns from parents of pupils at Gordonbrock Primary School, as the lollipop man had been off sick for a while.

Question
How many residents in the borough received a grant from the council towards renewable energy installations for their homes last year?
Reply
In financial year 2006/07, the year in which this grant scheme was introduced, one application was processed for the installation of solar thermal energy, for a home in Catford. There has been significant interest in the scheme, with private blocks of flats in both Forest Hill and Blackheath enquiring about the grant, however, this has yet to translate into further grants. Encouraging further renewable installations in residential property has been identified as a priority by the council and is one of the reasons why the Energy Action Zone (EAZ) has been established. EAZ officers will undertake door to door surveys, initially in Downham, Evelyn and Brockley, to assist residents to identify energy efficiency savings. However, they will also recommend renewable energy installations where residents are able to access funding. It is hoped that this will significantly increase the take up of renewable energy in Lewisham.

Question
Has any attempt ever been made to establish what the council's current carbon footprint is, and do you agree that we need to move towards calculating costs of projects in terms of carbon emissions as well as financial cost?
Reply
The council’s carbon footprint has been estimated at 44,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per annum for energy used within council operations. This includes those domestic gas and electricity bills paid by the council. Of this amount, the council currently purchases 80% ‘green’ electricity, which means that just under 17,000 tonnes of the above figure is already offset.
The council is working towards using life cycle costing wherever possible when evaluating project costs, for instance, the Building Schools for the Future programme used life cycle costing. Life cycle costing is based on finance rather than carbon. However, energy is a critical factor in life cycle calculations, meaning that environmental costs are taken into consideration through the cost of long term energy usage. To calculate true carbon costs it is necessary to know the embodied energy of everything procured through a project. At present, insufficient work has been undertaken nationally to provide this information and thus it is not currently possible to produce accurate carbon emission figures for all stages of a project. However, long term, when further carbon information is available, it will enable accurate life cycle calculations to be undertaken for projects.

Question
As part of the public consultation about the expansion of St Mary's Conservation area last year, residents were asked their views on the future use of Ladywell Playtower, (a grade 2 listed building). A number of community, housing and mixed uses were suggested by residents and the Council’s property service was asked to "investigate and promote its repair and re-use and "continue to liaise and negotiate with developers interested in the site". Is there any progress to report on this?
Reply
Consultants have been appointed to advise on the cost of bringing the remaining part of the Playtower into good repair as well as design options for a mixed use development that would include a refurbished Playtower. This work will be completed in May and will be used by Officers to advise the Mayor on options for bringing the Playtower back into use. Discussions with interested developers are ongoing but there is nothing to report yet.