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!

Vote Green on the Peach Paper this Thursday!

Hopefully there are very few people living in London who are unaware that we have elections on Thursday. However, while many are aware of the London Mayor elections, there has been far less media attention given to the London Assembly elections.

The London Assembly is a 25-member body that is supposed to scrutinise and hold to account the Mayor of London, though with the exception of the annual budget it has very little teeth to do so.

Greens currently have two members on the London Assembly, Brockley councillor Darren Johnson and Jenny Jones, who have worked hard to see many of our manifesto pledges from 2004 put into effect. Labour have needed the votes of the Greens on the assembly over the last 4 years in order to get their budget through, and Greens have driven a very hard bargain in exchange for that support. I very much hope that they will be re-elected and joined by Noel Lynch and Green Mayoral candidate Sian Berry.

On Thursday Londoners have 4 votes - first and second choice for Mayor and two for the assembly - one for your constituency candidate and one for the top-up, London-wide list. Obviously, I hope that you will give Sian Berry your first vote for Mayor and me your vote for Greenwich & Lewisham Constituency.

However, the most important vote for us and the one where you can help to elect more Greens to the London Assembly, is the peach ballot paper, which is under a system of proportional representation.


London Greens' recommendation that Green supporters vote Sian 1 and Ken 2 for Mayor has also been quite widely publicised and is a position that I fully support. I'm not a huge fan of Ken and I loathe much about New Labour, but I am a pragmatist and I do believe that out of the three main parties' candidates, Ken's policies, particularly on transport, affordable housing, the London Living Wage and tackling climate change are the closest to those of the Greens. I also believe that his commitment to London and Londoners is indisputable, which I don't feel can be said for Oxfordshire MP Boris Johnson.

While Ken Livingstone as a Labour Mayor is unlikely to have enough votes to get through his budget without working with other parties on the assembly, Boris Johnson as Mayor would be likely to have the necessary third of London Assembly members' to drive through whatever budget he wanted, without any co-operation or discussion with other parties, due to the fact that many of the assembly constituency seats are safe Tory ones. So if you want to have a London Assembly with any power over the Mayor of London whatsover, there is a strong argument for giving your second vote to Ken Livingstone and voting Green on the peach ballot paper on May 1st.

Whoever you plan to vote for on May 1st, it is important that all Londoners who support a diverse, multicultural London and oppose the policies of racist, far-right parties, get out and vote on Thursday. Just as Greens only need 5% to get a seat, so do the BNP, and they came frighteningly close to it last time, with 4.8%. However, the higher the turnout and the more people vote for parties other than the BNP, the lower the danger of this happening.

For a discussion on why voting Green on the peach ballot paper might be the most effective way for voters to stop the BNP, see here. London Strategic Voter also discusses this in some depth.

Need more info?
For more on our policies for London, take a look at Sian's website, or see our full manifesto. The Observer article leader on Sunday argues the case for voting Sian 1, Ken 2. BBC article on Greens and the London Assembly. For more local discussion on the elections, see Brockley Central or Bob from Brockley. And finally, the Independent on Sunday's feature on Sian, in which I am embarassingly (but fortunately anonymously) quoted in relation to chipmunks!