Local Restauranteur Branches out into Biodiesel

Richard Simpson, owner of the Cummin Up chain of Carribbean restaurants in Lewisham (who also incidentally stood for the Greens in Ladywell in 2002) just called to tell me about his latest business venture. Working with a partner, AC Energy is going to be collecting and converting the used cooking oil from restaurants in the area and converting it into biodiesel, which will then be offered back to the same businesses to power their vehicles. The website isn't quite there yet, but they have the waste licence and are launching soon. Sounds promising.

Maybe one small upside of higher fuel prices will be more cooking oil is recycled and less ends up clogging up London's sewers? While Greens have joined many NGOs in expressing concern at the devastating consequences of land being used to grow fuel crops, or agrofuels (leading to higher global food prices, feeding the cars of the rich rather than the mouths of the hungry etc, rainforest being cleared to grow palm oil, destroying habitat which may lead to the extinction of the oranguatan in the wild etc), biodiesel from waste cooking oil is to be welcomed. It is only ever likely to fuel a small percentage of the cars currently on the road, and in a world of high oil prices and an urgent need to cut carbon emissions, reducing private vehicle use and switching to electric cars is key, but biofuel from waste cooking oil can have a role, even if just in a limited way.

See Biofuel Watch or the Greenpeace website for more info on the issue.

Come on Thames Water!

This is the pavement on the corner of Ladywell Road/Algernon Road. Someone spilled a tin of paint there last week and Council cleaners did their best to clean it up, but couldn't clean it all. What really makes that corner of the street look at eyesore however, is the roughly tarmaced over area that has been like that for months, since Thames Water carried out some repair works there last year. They are supposed to come back and restore the pavement to how it was before, but they/their contractors never have.

Every few weeks a highways inspector from the Council comes along and sprays blue paint on the tarmac (blue paint = Thames Water), then Thames Water is issued with a fine and a reminder. They must have clocked up a fair few hundred pounds in fines by now, but still haven't got the pavement sorted. So I thought I'd post this on the off-chance that someone from Thames Water comes across it and decides to sort it out. I've also asked Lewisham's highways team to chase them again. Lewisham is supposed to be getting some extra powers soon to deal with utilities companies whose road works overrun etc - hopefully that will help.

UPDATE 30th August: It's now been fixed - hurray! (though there's still a bit by the drycleaners that needs sorting).

Streetvan!

Just found out that Streetcar, the car club that are rapidly expanding across London and have 14 sites in Lewisham, now also have Streetvan. 50 locations across London, including one in New Cross. White van driver mentality and driving skills not included, ideal for greenies to make occasional trips to DIY shop, freecycle bulky items etc! Thanks to Nick Ingham for telling me about that.

Lewisham Greens at Kingsnorth Protest

Pictured: Lewisham and Greenwich Greens outside Kingsnorth Power Station

Last Sunday I took part in the march from Rochester to Kingsnorth Power Station to oppose E.On's plans to build a massive new power station on the site. I met a number of other people from Greenwich and Lewisham there, and there was a strong showing of Green Party members from across the country. The march heralded the start of Climate Camp, which culminated in a mass action to shut down the power station today.

The government and E.On's media spin doctors have been out in force, but Climate Camp activists are pretty effective at getting their story across too. If built, Kingsnorth will emit between 6 and 8 million tons of CO2 every year, which is even more than the proposed third runway at Heathrow would produce and would seriously undermine any other efforts we might make to cut carbon emissions.

Political Policing
A lot of media attention has focussed on the policing and the politics behind it. After I attended the march I headed for the climate camp. I wasn't planning to stay long, as I had to go to work the next day. I just wanted to pop in, take a look, meet a few friends and spend an hour or so there. So I set off on my bike from Kingsnorth to the climate camp.

As I got within about half a mile of the camp, I met some fellow London Greens heading back, also on bikes. The police were searching everyone before letting them into the camp and seizing all bike locks. We could kind of see why they might want to seize d-locks from a group of people who were open about their intentions to carry out direct action, so thought fair enough, we'll lock our bikes up here and walk down to the camp.

Before we had managed to do that, a police van pulled up and warned us that if we tried to lock our bikes there, the locks would be cut and the bikes taken. So we asked if we could lock just the locks there and take our bikes with us to the camp. Nope. In the end we took our chances and joined the queue to be searched. Just like queuing for the toilets in a nightclub, the queue for women to be searched was much longer than the queue for men, highlighting the gender inbalance in the police force. The reason they gave for searching me was for 'items for criminal damage'. Funnily enough, they didn't find anything. After much debate the police officer who searched me relented and let me lock my bike to a fence, while the person I was with hid his lock in a hedge and retrieved it later. Fortunately, when I returned after an hour it was still there, though other cyclists were less lucky - clearly us cyclists are a big terrorist threat, especially compared to climate criminals like E.On.

The policing of the whole event has been excessive, political and oppressive, not to mention a waste of £3m of public funds. Police have confiscated all sorts of innocuous items from protestors, ranging from soap and kid's crayons to an ironing board as activists on the video below outlines.



Today a fellow Green was arrested and detained for 5 hours for possession of vitamin c tablets - clearly a big threat to national security and justified use of draconian police powers, not. Met officers whose time would better have been spent dealing with genuine crime on our streets were also drafted in to intimidate protestors. Many of the officers on duty looked frankly embarassed at the orders they were given. Politicians from across the political spectrum have been critical of the policing of this event and rightly so.

I don't buy the 'all police are corrupt' line and at a local level I have worked closely with the Ladywell Safer Neighbourhood team on various issues. However, the actions and behaviour of the police at Climate Camp over the past week have made me deeply cynical, and all the more determined to exercise my democratic right to protest in the future.

All Change on Ladywell Road

Ladywell Road has seen a number of changes over the last few weeks and there are a couple more hopeful developments in the pipeline.

Firstly, of course, was the long-awaited re-opening of Ladywell Tavern. Ute and I had Sunday lunch there a few weeks back and it is a great improvement - a much more relaxed, family-friendly atmosphere - the kind of place you could happily go and read the Sunday papers by yourself and have a coffee, without feeling intimidated. The new owners are very keen for it to be part of the community and tentative plans are already afoot with Ladywell Village Improvement Group (LVIG) to host a Ladywell Beer Festival there at some point in the future. Good food and decent wine and beer too.

Next up, Oscars has now opened on the site of the former International Minimart. Once again, a complete transformation. Part deli, part cafe, serving paninis, cake and ice cream, plus a range of decent bread. Beautifully done, with a lovely garden to the rear and nice touches such as the mosaic by the entrance. Good luck to local resident Petra who is behind Oscars and also active in LVIG.

Thirdly, YOGIS newsagents changed hands this week, with the previous owners moving to Lee Green after 30 years running the business. The new owner, Kaidaya, is keen to make a few changes and expand the shop to the rear. I dropped off a copy of the results of the survey that LVIG did about Ladywell Road, but now might be a good time for lots of people to go along and ask him if he is thinking of selling some fruit and veg (and then supporting him if he does!).

Shop Local in Ladywell Bags
There are a very limited number left now - just a dozen or so scattered between a few of the shops. Most of the money has been collected and banked now and a second order will be placed soon. Feedback so far has mostly been asking for longer handles for the next batch - anything else? Although we didn't make any profit out of the first batch, we did prove wrong all those who said it wouldn't work and the scheme couldn't compete with the bags sold at supermarkets etc etc!

Walkabout
Finally, I don't think I've mentioned that way back at the beginning of July I organised a walkabout in and around Ladywell Road with Deputy Mayor Heidi Alexander, highways officers and representatives from Ladywell Society and LVIG. It was a really useful to have Heidi there as well as officers, and for residents to explain their concerns and hopes for the road. Perhaps as a result of our previous walkabout and various casework enquiries (or perhaps just a happy coincidence), highways have submitted a bid for £250,000 to TfL to make improvements to the area along Ladywell Road. We will find out in November if they have been successful. If they are, highways will carry out a feasibility study and possibly do a consultation to coincide with the Ladywell CPZ consultation next spring. Highways issues raised on the walkabout included:

• the railings
• traffic speed
• the need for a safe crossing at the end of Algernon Road
• uneven paving (the patch outside the drycleaners that has been roughly tarmaced over for ages is waiting for Thames Water to come and sort it out. Every two weeks or so highways come along, inspect and fine Thames Water, but they still haven't sorted it).
• parking: residents' parking and the need for short-term parking for shops

Other issues raised included:

• long-term empty premises such as Nightwatch and the Snack Bar which bring down the rest of the street
• the run-down state of Coral's building with empty flats above (with all the money they are draining from the local economy, you'd think they could at least restore the top half of the building and rent the flats out really)
• the possibility of a Christmas market by the station, like Brockley had
• the garages site on the corner of Malyons Road (planning permission was granted a few years ago for flats and retail premises, but no approaches have been made to planning yet to do this)

Lewisham Green Drinks

Just a quick plug for Lewisham Green Drinks, which takes place on the 1st Monday of every month at Mr Lawrence Wine Bar, 389 Brockley Road. It's for anyone with an interest in green/environmental issues to meet up and chat/network informally with like-minded individuals. You can join the e-mail list to get a monthly reminder here, and there's also a group for Facebook afficianados.

We get a wide range of people coming along, from allotment holders and real ale drinkers, cyclists, fairtrade campaigners to those just thinking about greening up their life. And Mr Lawrence's does a good range of local ales and fairtrade and organic wines.

Could your street be Lewisham's first eco street?

One of the Lewisham Green Group budget amendments that we got through earlier this year was money to run a street-by-street energy reduction scheme. The pilot programme has been announced this week and the Council is looking for a road in the borough to become Lewisham’s first ‘Eco Street’.

Residents have until Wednesday 10th September to submit their street's entry, saying why they should be the lucky eco street. So roll up Ladywell residents, get speaking to your neighbours and submit an entry. Although the Council press release dumbs it down a bit with talk of an 'environmental makeover', what this programme should (at least as we proposed it) be primarily about is insulating all the participating properties in street (economies of scale bringing down the cost etc) and other measures to reduce both your carbon footprint and your fuel bills.

You can download the application form from here.

The only criteria is that nominated streets should have at least 100 households, preferably made up of more than one type of dwelling (ie, houses, conversion and purpose-built flats). [Personally I can't see any reason why 2 adjoining small streets couldn't submit a joint entry, but I'll check that].

Residents on the street will receive:
- A free energy assessment for each home
- A free pack of environmentally friendly ‘goodies’ for each household
- Financial support for measures to make their home more sustainable and to reduce energy bills
- Information and advice on how to reduce, reuse and recycle

Improvements for the street will include:
- Local clean-up events
- A ‘sustainable living’ event for the street
­- Development of a car club for the street
- Opportunities to support local wildlife and other biodiversity improvements

You may also be interested in taking a look at the Council's Greener Home Guide.

Ladywell to get Controlled Parking Zone Consultation - in Spring 2009

The Mayor has agreed to another round of consultations on controlled parking zones (CPZs) in a number of areas, including two within Ladywell ward - one around Ladywell village itself and the other for Sunninghill Road. Sunninghill Road is likely to be consulted quite soon over extending the Central Lewisham CPZ to include their road, as the new medical centre has exacerbated their parking problems. However the main Ladywell CPZ consultation is unlikely to take place until April next year (the date has already slipped back several times) as they are consulting a number of other areas first.

Everyone in the proposed area should get a consultation leaflet through their door. If you live outside the area being consulted, you will still be entitled to ask for a form or complete and return a response online.

Whatever your views on CPZs, it is important that as many residents as possible return the document so your views are considered. The borough's policy is only to implement a CPZ if the majority of residents in an area support it. Last time Ladywell was consulted (2005 I believe), there was a very low response rate and as a result only the top end of Algernon Road and the adjacent roads were added to the Central Lewisham CPZ.

I know it's an issue that provokes strong feelings both ways, and as councillors we get a number of enquiries from residents about parking pressures. I suspect that a number of residents in Ladywell, particularly in Malyons Road, Marsala Road, Gillian Street and Ellerdale Street may welcome the proposals, as these are the roads that seem to be particularly affected by commuter parking.

Click here to see a map of the area the Council plans to consult for the proposed Ladywell CPZ.

Empty Properties - Your Views Sought

The letter below has this week gone out to amenities societies and action groups within the borough inviting them to contribute to the scrutiny on empty properties that my committee is carrying out this Autumn. I think I have a pretty good idea of the problematic properties in Ladywell, and indeed one or two of them may well be used as case studies for the investigation (!), but if you have anything you would like to contribute, please do. I'm particularly keen to look at how we are using our powers under planning and environmental health laws and how effective our carrots (shop improvement grants, grants to bring properties back in to use for social housing) and sticks (empty dwelling management orders etc) are compared to other local authorities

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to let you know about a review of empty properties being carried out by Lewisham Council's Sustainable Development Select Committee. The Committee will be looking at how the council addresses the issue of empty homes and commercial properties in the borough, and what can be done to further reduce numbers.

As empty properties can be a blight on local areas - often leading to anti-social behaviour such as graffiti, fly-tipping and pest infestations - the Chair of the Committee (Councillor Sue Luxton) is keen to hear from local societies such as your own. Any contributions you wish to make to the review will be considered by the committee, along with a range of other evidence, when making their final recommendations. Contributions you may wish to make to the review might include:

• examples of empty properties (domestic or commercial) in your local area - particularly those which have become derelict or have led to anti-social behaviour such as those listed above;
• your experiences of how problem empty properties have been dealt with by the council; and
• the impact of empty properties on your neighbourhood.

Contributions can be made by email (joel.hartfield@lewisham.gov.uk) or by post to:

Joel Hartfield
Overview & Scrutiny
London Borough of Lewisham
2nd Floor Civic Suite
London SE6 4RU

If you don't feel you have anything to contribute to the review but would nevertheless like to attend the review sessions held in public, then they will take place at 7:30pm on the 2nd September and 7th October. Details of each meeting will be available on the council website around a week in advance of each meeting. The final report and recommendations are likely to be presented to the Mayor and Cabinet in November or December.

Further information on the work of the Sustainable Development Select Committee is available here.

Pushing for Action on Enviro-Crime

A lot of the casework we do as councillors we can't talk about on the blog , but there are a few enforcement issues we've been working on for a while that have recently seen some progress.

Howson Road - skip hire lorries
It is over a year ago now since a resident first wrote anonymously to Darren about skip lorries being illegally parked at the end of Braxfield Road and in the forecourt of the council-owned garages on the corner of Braxfield/Howson Road. Sometimes there were as many as three vehicles parked there and the owner carried out repairs to them at evenings and weekends, disturbing the peace of neighbouring residents and making a mess of the road in the process.

Since then, I have chased this up on numerous occasions (well over a dozen times) with environmental enforcement, highways, housing/Pinnacle and the local police. Eventually the lock to the garages gate was changed and the owner of the skip hire lorries evicted from the garages, but he persisted in parking his lorries on the road and carrying out repairs. Finally, after repeated requests and a question to the deputy mayor, there have been more regular visits by parking enforcement and 3 fixed penalty notices were issued. Just over 3 weeks ago (maybe after the 3rd FPN?) the lorries disappeared, and haven't been back since. It's still early days, and the problem may yet come back, but for now residents are breathing a sigh of relief and enjoying the peace and quiet.

This kind of issue really highlights the need for housing, parking, environmental enforcement and the police to work together to solve it. My impression is that this didn't happen as effectively as it should have, hence it took so long to get anywhere, but hopefully we have finally made some headway on this.

Loampit Hill Salvage Yard
Ladywell Safer Neighbourhood Team and ourselves have both received complaints from residents about the salvage yard on Loampit Hill spreading its goods across the pavement, making it difficult for pedestrians to pass safely. Ute followed up on this with environmental enforcement and the owner of the business was given repeated warnings but failed to comply. However, Lewisham Council took him to court and a couple of weeks ago he was fined £2,000 plus £1,390 costs. Hopefully, the pavement will now be kept clear . . .

Mercy Terrace Fly-Tipping

Mercy Terrace is the road off Algernon Road that leads to the mini-industrial estate under Ladywell Road railway bridge. Again, a resident got in touch to complain about the fly-tipping on one site in the terrace. Environmental enforcement followed up on several occasions but the problem continued. Eventually, the Council took legal action against the owner of the land, for failure to comply with their obligation under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to secure it against fly tipping and should the fly tipping occur to clear the land.

This was due to go to court a couple of weeks ago, but in the end following negotiations between the Council and the legal representatives for the site owner, the owner accepted a formal caution and share of court costs. The owner has also agreed to erect a fence and regularly inspect the land to make sure it is clear. In return the Council dropped the court action and agreed to provide a 'no fly-tipping' sign for the land. The formal caution can be sited in court should the Council ever need to take action against the same individual for this offence in the future.

So maybe a result on this one too, though we will need to keep monitoring. I understand that the owner is ultimately keen to put flats on the site.

We will continue to follow up on other environmental enforcement issues in the ward and try to get action, though sometimes it can be a painstakingly-slow process. Ute is continuing to push for progress with the derelict shop on the corner of Tyrwhitt Road and Loampit Hill, while I am still pushing for enforcement action against the owners of Nightwatch (46 Ladywell Road). Also on the list are the garages on the corner of Malyons Road/Ladywell Road and the mews to the rear of the shops between Adelaide Ave and Margarets Road.

Foxborough Gardens Fun Day, Saturday August 30th

OK, having been pretty scathing of the Brockley PFI in the previous post, I just wanted to touch upon a couple of positive things that have happened recently and are planned over the forthcoming weeks.

Back in June, I posted about a petition organised by residents of Foxborough Gardens, calling for a playground on the estate, which I presented to the Mayor. Since then, rather than sitting back on their laurels, residents have formally established a tenants and residents association (TRA) and are planning a fun day on Saturday 30th August. The purpose of the event is two-fold. Firstly, and obviously, for the community to have fun, but secondly, they are also hoping to raise money to put towards a playground on the estate. A bouncy castle, magician, face-painting and BBQ are just a few of the many attractions planned for the day.

Foxborough Gardens TRA are also bidding for some of the £1m that Lewisham has got to improve play areas in the borough. Along with other organisations and communities, they will be giving a presentation to the Mayor at an event on Saturday 13th September. The Mayor will then decide which 6 projects will get funding in the first year, and years 2 and 3 of the funding.

Pinnacle's tenant and residents' participation officer, Jim, has been supporting residents in getting this off the ground and I've been very impressed in how the community is working together on this.

So why the picture of Punch and Judy? Well, residents are keen to have a Punch and Judy show at the Fun Day, but are struggling to find someone to do this. So if you know anyone who does Punch and Judy (you know, lots of domestic violence, police brutality, dog stealing sausages etc), let me know and I will pass it on to the residents.

And don't forget to come along on the day - Saturday 30th August, 12-6pm - fun and for a good cause!

Brockley Housing PFI - Plenty of Room For improvement

Both Brockley and Ladywell councillors have had a fair amount of casework recently from Council tenants and leaseholders affected by the Brockley housing PFI.

Leaseholders have been concerned about the estimates they have been receiving for repair works and have formed a leaseholders association to work together and ensure their rights are respected. Brockley councillor Darren Johnson and I recently met with members of the association and Darren is hopefully arranging a meeting with the Mayor to enable leaseholders to discuss their concerns with him directly and agree a way forward.

Meanwhile a number of tenants feel that their views are being ignored or ridden roughshod over. We have had several reports of bullying behaviour from Higgins contractors, which we are following up on and hope will be swiftly stopped.

A further concern is the way in which in certain instances the wishes of leaseholders and tenants are being played off against each other. There was a vociferous campaign led by leaseholders and Ladywell Society and supported by local councillors, against plans to rip out the original features of Victorian properties in Ladywell and install UPVC windows. After lengthy discussions, we secured a small victory in that 38 Victorian properties in Algiers Road, Veda Road, Vicar's Hill and Ermine Road are now being treated as if they are in the conservation area.

However, the contractors, Higgins, are now telling tenants in some of the effected properties that they won't get double glazing 'because someone from Ladywell Society objected'. They are being told that their wooden sash windows will just be repaired (not even any draught-proofing), and if the window needs replacing it will only be replaced with single glazing. The tenants, who like the rest of us face rising fuel bills are understandably p*ssed off.

The Council's housing team are telling me that this isn't the case and that these properties will get double glazing, as will the conservation area proprties, but I'm still waiting for a definitive answer, with details of exactly what work is being done to improve the thermal efficiency of these Council homes. Clearly, in an age of rising energy prices and fuel poverty, to be missing this opportunity to insulate homes and reduce fuel bills would be scandalous.

It is also a big mistake to play off the wishes of those wanting to preserve the character of the area against the entirely understandable wishes of tenants to have warmer homes. Whoever is spreading the rumour that Ladywell Society are the villains of the piece for daring to oppose all the applications for UPVC windows in Victorian properties in Ladywell is wrong - they were entirely right to question the wisdom of ripping out original Victorian features from properties that are likely to be included in a future conservation area and replace them with UPVC windows (which have inferior thermal qualities to wooden-framed double glazing and are an environmental time-bomb). No one was ever suggesting these properties shouldn't have double-glazing, just querying the wisdom of UPVC.

It would seem that when drawing up the 20-year PFI contract, in all the 1,500 pages of legalese, the Council's Housing team didn't get round to specifying exactly what thermal improvements to homes would be made. Unbelievable, but, this, it would seem, is what often happens when the legal teams of private consortiums run rings around the Council's lawyers.

I hope to be proved wrong on this, but I am concerned about how things are currently progressing with the PFI. Balancing the rights of leaseholders and tenants is always going to be a tricky thing, but it seems that the contractors and Council between them are currently managing to annoy both. We urgently need clarity on what improvements to thermal efficiency those 38 properties, and those in the conservation area, are going to get, as well as dramatic improvements in communications to leaseholders.

Green councillors in Lewisham consistently opposed the Brockley PFI scheme from when it was first proposed to when it was signed, as did many residents, but New Labour ploughed on with it, and the deal was finally sealed, several years later than planned. Since then we have been working constructively with the Council's housing team, contractors and residents, to see that residents rights are respected and repairs and improvements are carried out to a high standard and we will continue to do so.

Is your sleep disturbed by aircraft noise?

A resident who lives near Hilly Fields came to my surgery recently. For the past few years he has regularly been woken up early in the morning (sometimes as early as 4.30am) by aircraft noise, and finds it difficult to get back to sleep. Back in January, when I asked the deputy mayor whether Lewisham would be submitting a formal response to the consultation on Heathrow (LBL didn't, Greens did) she said that the borough only received one or two complaints a year from residents about aviation noise. However, I'm now wondering if this is a case of a few individuals who are very light sleepers being particularly effected, or if the problem is more widespread and people are simply suffering in silence.

HACAN and the London Assembly environment committee have both at various times commissioned research on the impacts of aircraft noise on Londoners' quality of life. HACAN are very concerned at the impact a third runway or ending the runway alternation at Heathrow will have on those living under flightpaths are they are calling for the adoption of the noise levels recommended by the World Health Organisation.

So, I would like some feedback from residents: are you disturbed by aircraft noise? Does it wake you up/stop you from sleeping? E-mail me or post in the comments please.

Guest Post from Tim Lund: Landfit

Somehow, the longer you go without posting to your blog, the bigger the task of getting back into it seems, so apologies for the lack of posts recently. However, stand by for a veritable flurry of posts as I catch up with what we've been up to over the last few weeks. However, to kick things off I'm delighted to have a guest post from Tim Lund, Sydenham resident, who has been working with others residents to set up Landfit. At the same time that Tim in Sydenham was thinking about the wasted opportunity that many front gardens are, a couple of Brockley residents visited Ute at surgery with a similar idea. The two were put in touch with each other and the result is Landfit. I think this is Green Ladywell's first ever guest post, although I am happy to consider more if you would like to e-mail them to me. Anyway, over to Tim:

‘Landfit’ is a concept - the concept of matching people who want to do some gardening with some garden that wants a gardener. For me the idea goes back a few years to when:

1. I saw a friend looking after a bit of ground in front of Penge East railway station. She wanted to put some plants in it, and the station operators were happy to give her a space to leave some tools
2. I read or saw something about Guerrilla Gardeners
3. I was managing the waiting list for my allotments

I’ve always found untended gardens distressing - a combination of thinking that whoever is responsible for them is missing out, and seeing them as somewhere I could put in things I’ve grown in my own garden. In economic language, supply and demand aren’t matching, and the challenge is how to break down the barriers so that they can. In other words, how to get permission for gardener A to cultivate / look after B’s garden. Or rather B’s garden, but taking into account any number of other parties - neighbours, residents, managers, etc.

Thinking like an economist here gets you to identifying two essential requirements:

• Information about people wanting to garden, and gardens wanting gardening
• A flexible and robust contractual arrangement for the parties to a ‘Landfit’ arrangement

Thinking like someone who’s been involved in managing allotments adds another requirement if you want to help such arrangements stick, which is

• Access to training for would-be gardeners

My experience is that many new gardeners - maybe most - don’t have a very good idea of what gardening involves.

In response to a couple of people from my allotments telling me earlier this year about grants for Local Food growing, I started trying to work up the ideas more fully, and discussing them with other people. This has led to an informal group of ‘Landfitters’ and a web site www.landfit.org. There’s more going on than is up on the site at the time of writing (Aug 9th), since thanks to the networking we have done, we have been approached by a local Housing Association, Hexagon, with the idea of using the Landfit concept with them.

It’s important for me that Landfit should not be seen as an organisation, and that it doesn’t get bogged down in the business of applying for grants, and then demonstrating that it has met various bureaucratic criteria. When I finished my first attempt to explain the concept, I felt I had to test immediately how it would work at the simplest (grassroots?) level, so what better way of finding out than to go three doors down my street and pitch the idea to the occupiers of a house with such an untended garden. And I really did want to find somewhere to put a dessert gooseberry I’d just been given, and they do have a nice south facing wall it should appreciate … I wasn’t exactly surprised by the cautious reaction, since this was the sort of thing I had been thinking about - how to present the idea, address likely concerns. But we came to an agreement, and it’s all going very happily

It’s hardly surprising that the idea can work as this sort of simple level - and in fact, as I knock the idea around, I discover other people who’ve done exactly the same sort of thing. I also learned of a group in North America, ‘Sharing Backyards‘, that is trying to develop the concept in the same way that we are.

But making the concept work at a local level really requires very little more than having the idea. We had a meeting a while back at which someone told us of a neighbour’s garden that was neglected … and what could be done about it? Well, you just go and ring the bell, introduce yourself, and take it from there! At which point the amateur sociologist in me emerges, and wonders what on earth it is that makes this so difficult. Thanks to making this approach to my neighbours - who I’d never met - I now have that many more friends on my street. I also get into conversation with people passing, and residents of the sheltered housing block overlooking the garden.

For us, working with with Hexagon Housing is going to be a test of the concept at a more complex level. One challenge will be keeping records of gardeners and gardens, and the matches between them. Sometimes the IT developer in me would like to be able to focus simply on this, since it’s not hard to imagine a really cool web site in which gardeners enter their details, garden stakeholders enter theirs, and through the magic of an interactive Web 2.0 site, everyone lives happily ever after. ‘Sharing Backyards’ is already doing this sort of thing, and I have been in contact with them to discuss how their model could be exported to London. However, I think we’ll be able to handle the IT requirements at this stage with an Access database - which is something I can manage.

The main challenge, I think, will be working out what gardening training is required, and delivering it. It would be nice if this could happen informally, in the same way that most people who enjoy gardening have learned what to do - learning from their parents, trial and error and a few books. But this is probably not the best way of learning, and where there are requirements to deliver qualifications that will help people get back into work, as with a Housing Association, something more formal will be required. This is not the time to go into all this, since I’m still developing ideas, and un-thought through thoughts are that interesting to read. I’m going to have to get down to thinking about where funding will come from, and how what we do meets others’ requirements, which will be a learning experience.

That’s just a part of it. We’re always interested to hear from people who are interested, and tell them about what we are doing. If you want to do some Landfitting yourself, what is stopping you? As to the word ‘Landfit’ - it has three ideas to it:

• Fitting people to bits of land, and vice versa
• Getting fit by working on a bit of land
• The slogan a ‘Land fit for heroes’, which was around when allotments where at the peak immediately post the first World War

Feedback from Ladywell Assembly

Sue and I haven’t disappeared – on the contrary, the blog has gone quiet recently because we’ve just been too busy!

Amongst other things, feedback is still due from the first meeting of the new Ladywell Assembly. It was a positive meeting with lively discussions around the tables about the local issues people are concerned about and how these could be addressed. Attendance was lower than we had hoped, but we’ll make sure future meetings don’t clash with football or any other major event!

The issues that were raised were unsurprisingly familiar: the top three were various traffic issues (parking and traffic flows, as well as making streets more pedestrian and cycle friendly), the need for more community facilities and in particular youth provision from leisure activities to life skills, and much needed improvements to the local shopping parades (empty shops, shop fronts, the streetscape in general, encouraging more local shopping). All of these of course have a direct impact on the look and feel of the area.

This is not a comprehensive list but all issues raised will come back to the next Assembly to be prioritised and for action plans to be developed, in addition to the ongoing activities and projects that have already been started in the ward over the past few years prior to the assemblies being launched in the borough.

The next meeting of the Assembly is going to take place on Wednesday, 8 October from 7-9pm in the modern block of Prendergast School on Adelaide Avenue and we’d like to see many of you there. The meeting will also consider this year’s Localities Fund of £10,000 to be spent in the ward - we’ll shortly start consulting on this.

Hilly Fields Fayre - Today!

Haven't had chance to blog much recently, but will try to catch up over the next few days.

Hilly Fields Fayre is of course today, 12-5pm - we will have a stall - hope to see you there!

Have your say about Ladywell at the ward assembly

The first Ladywell Assembly meeting is going to take place on Thursday, 26 June from 7-9pm at St Andrew’s Centre on the corner of Brockley Road and Wickham Road, SE4 2SA.

The Assembly is open to all who live, work or learn in Ladywell ward or have an interest in the area, and it is your chance to:

· Discuss and share what matters to you
· Work with councillors and others to shape the future of your neighbourhood
· Together raise issues of concern with the Mayor and other public bodies
· Find out what is happening in Ladywell
· Consider how the Locality Fund of £10,000 could be spent in Ladywell

The assembly is going to meet four times a year. The discussions at the first meeting are going to shape the first set of priorities to be addressed, and there will be updates on these and new projects at future meetings. At the end of the first meeting a co-ordinating group will be set up to move things forward between meetings, and there is dedicated officer support in the Council for the assembly. This is a new way of working with local people to influence and shape improvements in their area, and this is happening in all 18 wards in the borough.

Please get in touch with me (cllr_ute.michel@lewisham.gov.uk) if you would like to get more information or raise issues if you cannot attend the Assembly. Further information is also available on www.lewisham.gov.uk/localassemblies.

We, the three ward councillors, look forward to seeing many of you at the meeting and to continuing to work with you on local issues.

Latest Brockley Society Newsletter Available Online

The Brockley Society summer newsletter is now available to download on their website; those living in the conservation area should get one through their door at some time soon before Hilly Fields Fayre. Lots of interesting info in it, including news of a new group for Dads at Ladywell Early Years Centre:

"Dads’ Group opens in Ladywell
Are you a stay at home dad? or Do you work part time and help look after the children? Stuck for ideas and wanting to meet other dads?

A new Dads’ group has opened at the Ladywell Early Childhood Centre. Come along with your child/children for a cuppa and a chat and let the children enjoy a variety of activities.
The idea behind the Dad's Group is to show that men care about more than sports and video games. Men care about their families and want to love, nurture & share the wonderful experience of parenting with the mums. The Dad's role in the family is very important. Children
need to see both mum and dad taking active roles in their lives.

These groups are obviously about being a dad so there is a lot of parent/child play sessions, but some of the sessions will be about men's health etc so there will be a creche available for these. Men have added masculinity when it comes to speaking out, and we would rather deal with any problems or situations on our own and deal with the consequences but parenthood can be made a little easier knowing that other like minded men are going through the same thing. Once a month we can arrange a group outing maybe to a museum, swimming, or even camping!

The Dads’ group is held at the Ladywell Early Childhood Centre, 30 Rushey Mead, Brockley, SE4 1JJ. For more information contact: Mike Acord."

New Adventure Playground for Ladywell Fields

Ladywell Fields Users' Group are meeting at the Civic Suite, Lewisham Town Hall this Wednesday, at 7pm. Among other things on the agenda is a presentation from youth services on plans for a new adventure playground on Ladywell Fields. The Council has successfully bid for lottery money for this and the site they are proposing to put the playground is the area of Ladywell Fields near Malyons Road (by the spiral bridge), incorporating/replacing the disused changing rooms and around there.

There are currently 4 adventure playgrounds in Lewisham which are very popular, and this would be number 5. I think it is a great idea and would provide a much needed facility for young people in the Ladywell, Crofton and Catford area. Not sure if many residents on Malyons Road or Dressington Avenue are aware of the proposals yet, although some people might have seen the plans at the recent Ladywell Fields Open Day. I have suggested putting the plans online and some kind of consultation/leaflet drop in the area so people can have some say prior to any planning application being submitted.

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.

I'm now halfway through my 4-year term as a councillor and can report that it is a steep learning curve, hardwork, challenging, often very frustrating but rewarding when you manage to get something sorted! If anyone would like to find out more about what being a councillor involves, or might be interested in standing as a Green Party candidate next time round, I'm more than happy to discuss the role further.

Read more about the campaign on London Councils’ website.

New Statesman New Media Awards 2008

This blog has been nominated for a New Statesman New Media Award, in the 'Democracy in Action' category. It's up against some pretty stiff competition, not least various MPs, Green MEP for the South-East Caroline Lucas and Vote Match, so I won't be rushing to place a bet on our chances at any of our numerous local betting shops ;) , but it's lovely to have been nominated!

Brockley Central, meanwhile, has been nominated by a number of its regular readers, myself included, in the Community Activism category.

Carnival of the Green # 130!

I am delighted to be hosting Carnival of the Green today, a medley of all things green on the blogosphere over the past week. I signed up for this about a year ago, as it gets booked up months in advance, so it's quite exciting that my turn has finally come round! Thank you to Little Green Secrets who hosted last week's Carnival of the Green. Next week's carnival is at Blogfish.

This week is 'Recycle Week' here in the UK, and appropriately, there are a number of posts about recycling, reusing materials, and composting. Its also World Environment Day on Wednesday, and the Environment Agency have launched a new campaign for people to do their bit (all well and good, but we also need the government to 'do its bit' to make it easier for us to 'do our bit'). Anyway, here goes:

Waste, Recycling and Composting

The Green Path Company has an article on recycling electronic waste. Ecojoe has a quick look at how much food the U.S. wastes, and what some companies are doing about it. On Fake Plastic Fish, following the discovery of a plastic eating microbe by a 16-year old, Beth ponders whether this lets us off the hook as a way of dealing with plastic bags or is simply an excuse to keep wasting resources. Meanwhile on Conserve Plastic Bags, Michelle is finding that her biodegradable dog muck bags are not biodegrading as she would like. Jzulueta on True Living Space writes about SAPSPA , an organisation in the Philppines that makes beautiful baskets etc from old newspapers and magazines. Over on Another Green World, Derek Wall shows how he has learnt to cut waste and improve his gardening by importing compost technics from Cuba which helped the country survive economic hardship and oil shortages in the 1990s.

Gardening and agriculture
Interested in growing your own food? Read about Sadie's unconventional efforts at soil preparation. Find out what she did....on Veggie Revolution this week. Continuing with the gardening theme, Tao of Change looks at the use of lawnmowers and ponders if there could be a better way. Tao discusses and shows photos of alternatives. On a similar theme, Greener Pastures asks 'Does your lawn really need to look like astroturf?' Happy to confirm that mine most certainly does not - elections and council commitments mean that my garden is definitely more wildlife garden than originally intended.

EatDrinkBetter looks at a unique urban agriculture program which helps refugee camp survivors to start their own urban agriculture businesses while bringing a community garden and better nutrition to a project housing area. Meanwhile the Organic Makeup and Skin Care blog has a feature on biodynamic farming. What it is, who started it, certification it uses and even green brands (of skin care and makeup) who use biodynamic ingredients in their products.

And how about a way of dealing with all those slugs and snails that are thriving with the recent damp weather in London? The excellent Devonshire Road Nature Reserve blog has a suggestion.

Other bits and bobs
Green Building Elements has an article about a simple plumbing device that can help preheat hot water by recovering heat from water going down the drain. 80 to 90 percent of the energy used to heat water for the shower is lost down the drain, but apparently a DWHR unit can save as much as 25-30% of the energy used for water heating, and offers payback periods ranging from 3 to 7 years, depending on use patterns.

Alternative Energy blog asks (and tries to answer) "Why are oil prices so high", while Money Blue Book argues that One Great Potential Benefit Of Higher Petrol Prices is Less Traffic. Hmm, not sure if the UK hauliers will buy that one . . .

Money Changes Things has an article on SEED, Oberlin's Student Experiment in Ecological Design, which was featured in the New York Times. This post includes comments on recalibrating the needle on consumption and entitlement.

Over on Beansprouts Blog, Melanie Rimmer argues that it's a mistake to think people acting individually can't bring about important change. Busting this myth, and some other misconceptions about people power. No Impact Man has a Climate Change Denial Industry Primer, while on La Marguerite, Marguerite Manteau-Rao uses the power of insight to expand the meaning of climate denial.

For the nostalgic, Natural Patriot has a post about Herbert S Zim, founder of the Golden Guides, pocket-size introductions for children to such subjects as fossils, zoology, microscopy, rocks and minerals, codes and secret writings, trees, wildflowers, dinosaurs, navigation and more. Don't think we had those this side of the pond, but hopefully it will ring a bell for Americans.

Political Animals
OK, being a Green Party councillor, I couldn't do this Carnival without at least a little plug for my colleagues, so here's a mini-roundup of what a few other elected Greens across the UK have been doing this week. York Green Party Councillor Andy D'Agorne writes about the possibility of a Transition Town group getting off the ground in York, as well as the joys and otherwise of Cycling in York. For those of you not in the know on Transition Towns see their wiki. I'm hoping something similar is going to be happening in Lewisham soon too - I know a few people in Sydenham and Brockley are discussing this.

Bristol councillor Charlie Bolton has had some success in getting a train service improved, but is still waiting for the confirmation that the popular Bristol-Bath cycle path is not going to be turned into a rapid transit route. Stroud councillor Philip is concerned about the validity of the feasibility study into the Severn Barrage and busy lobbying British Waterways and the Environment Agency over the state of Stroudwater.

Caroline Lucas, Green MEP for the South-East has recently started a blog about her day to day work, in addition to her Comment is Free blog. It doesn't seem to have a proper RSS feed from it yet, but hopefully will do soon.

Well that's it from Carnival of the Green for this week - it certainly makes a change from my usual posts about controlled parking zones, betting shop licences, uneven footpaths and nappucinos! Don't forget to visit Blogfish next week.

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.

Full Council: Hilly Fields Footpaths Petition, London Living Wage and Affordable Housing

Fun and games as always at Full Council tonight, with the usual hefty dose of political point scoring despite a fair degree of consensus on the issues being discussed. In brief:

1. Mike (pictured) presented a petition signed by 272 local residents and park users concerned at the poor state of the footpaths in Hilly Fields. The resurfacing of the cycle path across Hilly Fields recently is welcome, but it throws into even sharper relief the sorry state of the other paths in the park, which are in places treacherous for cyclists, wheelchair users and walkers alike. Well done to Hilly Fields Users Group who organised the petition.

2. I asked a number of questions to Mayor and Cabinet on planning enforcement, community composting schemes, air quality monitoring and the possibility of a safety audit to look at the implications of removing the railings on Ladywell Road. The full questions and answers can be viewed here.

3. Ute proposed a motion calling on the Council to ensure it paid all its staff at least London Living Wage (£7.20/hour) and to ensure that its contractors (eg cleaners, catering staff) did likewise. This is less of an issue for those directly employed by the Council, who currently all receive at least this rate (only just in some cases), but more so for those employed by contractors. The motion received cross-party support, and the Mayor indicated that as contracts come up for renewal, it would be stipulated going forward that staff should be paid at least London Living Wage.

There was a bit of argy bargy over whether it was Ken or the Greens who were responsible for the London Living Wage Unit at City Hall (I think it was a Green budget amendment supported by Ken in order to get Green support for his budget), plus a funny moment when the Tories said they would support it because they hadn't heard the Mayor of London say he was opposed to it (never mind what they themselves think, hey?). Anyway, the motion was passed, which was good news and sends a clear signal that Lewisham Council is going to outlaw poverty pay among all those working for the Council, whether directly or via a contractor.

4. There was also cross-party support for a Labour motion calling for the affordable housing quota in the forthcoming Local Development Framework to be increased to 50%. Again, this was welcome news and something the Green Group has consistently called for, including in our submission to the LDF consultation last August. At that point officers argued that it wasn't feasible, so we are glad that the borough's position on this has changed.

It is of course slightly ironic that Lewisham is now supporting a 50% affordable housing quota when it previously wanted to stick at 35% and was in dispute with the previous Mayor of London over this. Now we have a Tory Mayor of London who wants to scrap the affordable housing quota, the Labour Mayor of Lewisham suddenly supports it. Welcome news, nevertheless. The Tories opposed this motion, on the grounds that Boris had made his opposition to affordable housing quotas clear.

There was some hoo-hah over a Lib Dem amendment and motion pointing out the number of planning applications in Lewisham that have failed to meet even the existing 35% quota, but once the main motion was passed (the amendment fell), the Lib Dems withdrew their second motion.

So, two good motions passed, then lots of councillors went to watch some football match or other in Moscow apparently.

Open Gym

A new exercise class has started on Hilly Fields for people who want to get fit but who hate the gym. It's called Open Gym and has been set up by local resident Jo Hill.

Tea Leaf Arts Gallery

I've been sent the application form and details for joining Tea Leaf Arts, Brockley's new art co-operative (the new building with the sticking out bit on Brockley Cross). If there are any creative types reading this blog who would like the details forwarded to them, let me know.

Nappuccino at Masons on 27th May

The next Lewisham Nappuccino will be held on Tuesday 27 May at Masons Bar and Restaurant, Ladywell (beside the train station) from 10am-midday. The event will provide lots of information and guidance on Real Nappies and their benefits from Real Nappy experts. If possible, please let Vivienne, the Real Nappy officer know if you are planning to come along as space is slightly limited (tel: 020 8314 2124) .

Betting licence has to be granted

Portland Bookmakers won their appeal against the Council’s decision last November to turn down their application for a betting shop licence for the former Homeview video shop on Brockley Road. This means that after 16 months of valiant, spirited, untiring und unprecedented local opposition the corner shop will become yet another bookies.

In spite of the ultimate outcome a big Thank You and Well Done is due to the many hundreds of local residents who got involved in this campaign in one way or another and in particular to those who gave evidence in the various hearings we’ve been to since last year and who, like me, know more about gambling legislation and research now than we ever thought we would.

Personally I don’t have great faith in the applicant’s promise to contribute to the community but hope lives on and I would like to be proved wrong.

I have, however, great faith in communities and as this case has shown once more, residents have risen to the challenge and made a well-argued sound case against the application. The saddest experience of the appeal hearing this week was that in his summing up statement, the applicant’s Counsel largely quoted passages from the recent Haringey appeal verdict which were irrelevant to the local situation – and yet this was good enough to get the licence.

As we argued objecting to the application, the proximity of both services for people recovering from addictions just yards away (and more services provided in a larger area around the premises with a higher density of provision than in other parts of the borough) and a secondary school round the corner should have been taken into consideration on the grounds of protecting children and other vulnerable persons from being harmed or exploited by gambling. However, this sorry piece of legislation, the Gambling Act 2005 which a Labour government has seen fit to pass, does not deem these circumstances valid to refuse a licence. I am not against businesses or betting shops in principle but in reality there is virtually no balancing of business interests with the wider interests of a local community and society in general and in particular of protecting its more vulnerable members.

The law effectively forces the Council, which had turned down the licence application on these grounds last November, to undo with one hand what it does with the other. Lewisham Council spends millions of pounds every year on valuable services for a range of vulnerable people. One of these, a service for people recovering from addictions including gambling, is literally just yards away from the new betting premises. Maybe this makes sense to the MPs who voted in favour of this. It doesn’t make sense to me.

Ta-dah!

300 'Shop Local in Ladywell' bags, featuring the winning design by 5 year-old Jemima Jones from Gordonbrock Primary School arrived today. I'll be working over the next few days to get these on sale in local shops and they are also likely to be on sale at Hilly Fields Fayre and other local events. They are a good quality organic cotton produced by a fairtrade organisation in India. More details to follow.

That was the good news for today, Ute will be posting later with some not so good news for Brockley Road . . .

105 Ladywell Road - decision deferred

The application to turn 105 Ladywell Road into a takeaway came to my planning committee last night. I used my right as ward councillor to speak against this and then withdraw from the meeting, as I felt I had a fairly closed mind on this particular application. A representative from Ladywell Society also spoke against.

The officer recommendation was to grant permission as it was felt that it was unlikely that refusal would be upheld on appeal. However, after some discussion, the committee decided to defer the decision until the next meeting, pending evidence of how long the property has been empty and how exhaustive the owner's efforts have been to let the premises.

I was pleased that committee members were sympathetic to local concerns and asked for further information. Under the old UDP (unitary development plan) there are few grounds on which to turn the change of use down, but under the draft LDF (local development framework), there is more potential and planning committees currently have to consider both policies as we are part-way between the two.

The key planning consideration was whether the loss of an A1 shop would contribute towards preserving or enhancing the local character, vitality and viability of the shopping parade. The officer's report argued that it would not harm the shopping parade as there would still be 21 other A1 category premises in the area (A1, incidentally, includes hairdressers and launderettes among other things, not just 'shops'). I argued that it would adversely affect the viability of the shopping parade, as we don't currently have anywhere selling good quality fresh food, eg fresh fruit and veg, meat or fish in the area and this would be one less possible premises for a greengrocers or other decent food shop.

The application also has to be considered alongside the fact that Rio Grill (Life Cafe as was) is operating as a takeaway without the appropriate planning consent, the empty 'Snack Bar' could potentially reopen one day as a takeaway, and there is another application pending to change 40 Ladywell Road from A1 to a cafe (plus we already have a kebab shop, fish and chip shop, Chinese takeaway, cafe on Algernon Road and Ladywell Tandoori).

It was also useful to be able to refer to the results of the recent survey of views on Ladywell shops and services, including the fact that over 50% of respondents said they would like to see a fruit and veg shop, 46% would like a coffee shop and 43% wanted a deli, but not one person said they wanted more takeaways. Unfortunately our current planning policy is exceedingly limited in its ability to protect small, local shopping parades from turning into little more than rows of takeaways, estate agents and money transfer shops.

Anyway, the decision has been postponed for 6 weeks, which gives budding enterpreneurs 6 weeks to persuade the owner of 105 Ladywell Road to let the premises to them to open a decent food shop instead of opening yet another takeaway.

Ladywell Village Improvement Group: AGM and Blog

A blog has been set up by the Ladywell Village Improvement Group (the name has now been decided!) and a date for their AGM now fixed: Thursday 5 June at the St Mary's Centre, Ladywell Road at 7.30pm. They are looking for people to help them deliver flyers to homes in the area advertising the meeting and/or willing to stand as officers for the new group. See blog for further details. Hopefully at some point the blog will become Ladywell's answer to Brockley Central (a tall order, I realise!). You can e-mail them enquiries/offers of help. They will also have a stall at the Ladywell Fields Fun Day this Saturday.

I've also added a link to the blog for Devonshire Road Nature Reserve, which I found via Andrew's blog.

Sue's Shameless Schadenfreude

Just heard a funny story. A man gets off the train at Brockley Station on polling day, to be greeted by a Socialist Party activist with a leaflet urging him not to vote Green because 'they supported privatising council housing in Brighton'. At this point Green Party councillor for Queen's Park ward in Brighton, Ben Duncan, introduced himself and put the activist straight on a few facts. Said activist, duly humbled, promised not to spread such nonsense around again, while Ben set off to help us with our polling day operation in Brockley. See Ben's blog for further details.

This is the same Socialist Party who delivered a leaflet around Telegraph Hill and New Cross before the election claiming that Greens supported cuts to services in Lewisham Hospital. Utter nonsense. Sorry Chris, but you thoroughly deserved the 1.06% you got in the elections for spreading such misleading drivel. Shame on you.

Green Election Results elsewhere

Congratulations to Greens in Camden who won a Council by-election on the same day as the London Assembly and Mayoral elections. Alex Goodman took the third seat in Highgate ward from the Conservatives, and joins Camden Green councillors Maya de Souza and Adrian Oliver.

Elsewhere in the country we won seats in Liverpool, Sheffield, Stroud, Solihull and Norwich, had near misses in Reading and Redhill and lost a seat each in Manchester and Oxford.

In Norwich we are now the main opposition after the Greens won 3 seats off the Lib Dems taking their total number of councillors to 13. Greens secured 33 per cent of the vote and first place across the wards that make up the Norwich South Westminster constituency - giving Adrian Ramsay a great chance of taking over from Charles Clarke as MP. The Greens also secured, for the first time, first place on total vote share across the whole City Council area: over 10,000 votes and 29 per cent. More on this in this BBC interview with Green Party spokesperson Peter Tatchell.

So all in all, not a bad night for us, we ended the night 5 councillors up on our previous total, at 116, but we had hoped for a few more gains.

Thank you!

Thank you to everyone who voted Green in Greenwich & Lewisham on May 1st. I didn't get elected (it was always a long shot!), but the 16,511 people who voted Green on the London-wide member list did help to ensure that our two existing London Assembly members, Darren Johnson and Jenny Jones were re-elected. Congratulations to Len Duvall who was re-elected as London Assembly member for Greenwich & Lewisham.

The 'vote Green on the peach paper' message appears to have worked, as although we were in 4th place in the constituency results, we leap-frogged the Lib Dems and were in 3rd place on the London-wide list vote. Our percentage of the London Assembly list vote rose slightly in Greenwich & Lewisham, from 10.9% to 11.2%, although this includes an increase of over 4,000 in actual Green votes, due to the increased turnout. We also came in a respectable 4th place in the mayoral race, both in Greenwich & Lewisham and London-wide. Well done to Sian for all her hard work.

Not quite the result Greens were after, as we had hoped for 3 or 4 Green members on the London-wide list, no elected racists and a Mayor who understands the urgency of action on climate change, but given the big squeeze on smaller parties' votes in the Ken/Boris battle, I think we did well to stand our ground, while Lib Dems lost a couple of seats and UKIP/One London were wiped out.

I fear London may now be in for 4 years we can ill-afford of inaction on climate change, worsening air quality and congestion and developers getting away with little or no affordable housing in new developments, but I hope that I will be proved wrong on this. Darren and Jenny will work hard to hold the new mayor to account and to push him to build on their hard-fought Green successes from the past few years, but with Conservatives hokding 11 out of 25 seats on the assembly, Boris Johnson has more than the third required to pass his budget, so the influence of members from other parties may well be limited over the next 4 years.

I very much hope that the new Mayor decides to stick with London's Climate Change Action Plan and the targets of 60% reduction in carbon emissions by 2025 as well as to proceed with the levels of investment in cycling and walking promised by the previous Mayor. I was alarmed by his comments in an interview immediately after his election where he again called for an airport in the Thames Estuary, which would suggest he hasn't grasped the urgency of the need to cut carbon emissions.

Finally, I'd like to congratulate fellow Lewisham blogger James Cleverly, who stood as Conservative candidate for Greenwich & Lewisham in 2004, and has just been elected as Conservative member for Bexley & Bromley with an incredible 105,000 votes. While we're clearly from different sides of the political spectrum, James is a decent bloke who doesn't fall into the 'nasty Tory' category. He's also a cyclist and will, I hope, push our new cycling mayor to make London the cycling capital of the world. Like I said, I hope.

Right, now I'm taking a couple of days off then it's back to business as usual and catching up on Council stuff!