Author: thurlowparklabour

Thurlow Park's Labour councillors sharing news and ways to get involved in the local area - including West Norwood, Herne Hill, Tulse Hill and West Dulwich.

Report anti-social behaviour | Lambeth Council

Due to the continued financial situation imposed on Lambeth Council by central government – which have seen a 56% cut in our funding since 2010 – the Council has had to make difficult decisions that are increasingly impacting on our frontline services. 

Recent changes to the Community Safety Service has established a single point of contact for all Council related crime and disorder issues. 

For the service to remain effective the Council has separated Anti Social Behaviour (ASB) / environmental / noise / enforcement teams and they have now been replaced by neighbourhood teams. The restructure of the community safety team does not affect the important work the council does with community groups and the Police to tackle gang violence. 

ASB is an important issue and we will continue to work in partnership with our Safer Neighbourhood Team, our community leaders, and various residents groups. 

Please make a note of the team’s contact details:  

Community Safeguarding: 020 7926 5000

Police non-emergency number: 101

Please note, the Council will no longer provide an out of hours noise hotline. The new service will now assess every complaint and only respond if a complaint is judged to be having a serious community impact. Residents who are experiencing repeated noise issues will be contacted during office hours by the service and supported to tackle the problem (including out of hours visits if necessary).

Report anti-social behaviour | Lambeth Council

As many of you may have know Lambeth’s core government funding will have been cut by 56% between 2010 and 2018 and since 2011, the Council has identified £182m of savings – including more than £40m this year – while a further £55m needs to be found by 2020.

If you’d like to find out more about the current financial challenge which Lambeth Council faces see –  http://love.lambeth.gov.uk/toughchoices/budget-figures/ 

There are a number of informative graphs and pie charts and a section on frequently asked questions that may help residents understand the financial situation the Council is in. 

As your Thurlow Park ward representatives in Lambeth we’ve supported a proposal to make London the world’s first National Park City. ‘A city where people and nature are better connected’.

‘A city that is rich with wildlife and every child benefits from exploring, playing and learning outdoors. A city where we all enjoy high-quality green spaces, the air is clean to breathe, it’s a pleasure to swim in its rivers and green homes are affordable. Together we can make London a greener, healthier and fairer place to live. Together we can make London a National Park City.

In the UK, we have 15 unique and inspiring National Parks. These parks are home to more than 400,000 people and host over 80 million visitors each year. They are extraordinarily important resources, managed for relatively low cost. In 2012 England’s National Parks contributed as much to the economy as the UK aerospace sector. Each year they cost each of us just 80p’.

If you’d like to find out more, or see which other wards have signed up, please follow this link – http://www.nationalparkcity.london/ward_support

Celebrate the community’s involvement in improving the neighbourhood

Streetworks is a community-led, TfL-funded project to improve West Norwood and Tulse Hill. The first phase of the project is to improve Norwood Road, and the second phase will look at improvements to the one way system and area around Tulse Hill station.

Hundreds of residents have been involved – from attending workshops and tweeting us their ideas to taking part in training and hosting their own community engagement events. 

We want to celebrate the involvement and enthusiasm of the community so on 23rd May we would like to invite you to come to our party and awards ceremony at Elmgreen School. We will hear from students at Elmgreen and members of the steering group about their involvement, and about future opportunities to get stuck in, and the Mayor of Lambeth will be awarding certificates to students. The event will conclude with a drinks and nibbles and a ‘marketplace’ of groups and local projects, should you want to find out more about this and other local opportunities.

  • Elmgreen School
  • 23 May
  • 5-6.30pm

RSVP here

Open Orchard party tonight

Open Orchard is celebrating the end of the tree planting season with a party tonight Friday 13 May, 6-8pm at the L’arche
Garden Lodge, 21 Idmiston Road, West Norwood, SE27 9HE

Whether you bought a tree, sponsored the Open Orchard’s work, got involved in planting, tweeted, liked or simply supported what they do, this party is for you.

There will be a potluck dinner at the lovely L’Arche Garden Lodge on Idmiston
Road, West Norwood- one of the orchard locations from 2015. Please bring a dish
to share – Open Orchard will provide some cider, made from apples some of
the volunteers picked last year. And for those that want to carry on the celebration,
they plan to head to a local pub afterwards. 

So they know you are coming, and to avoid everyone bringing quiche, please RSVP here.

Projects like the Open Orchard are what makes us so proud to be councillors in Thurlow Park and West Norwood – this is a community where people get involved and make positive changes happen. We want to do all we can to support community projects like this, so if you have an idea but you’re not sure of the next steps, please get in touch.

Florence Eshalomi | London City Hall

Congratulations to Flo who successfully campaigned to win the 2016 GLA Elections in Lambeth & Southwark. Fighting to continue the excellent work of Val Shawcross CBE Flo was able to gain the support of 96,946 votes with the Tories far behind in second followed by the Greens and then the Lib Dems. 

Congratulations must also go to Mayor Sadiq Khan who successfully gained the support of over 1.3 million voters during a long and hard fought campaign. With 46% turnout during the election and over 44% of the first preference vote going to Sadiq we look forward to working with the Mayor’s office for the residents of Thurlow Park. 

Florence Eshalomi | London City Hall

The West Norwood and Tulse Hill Business Improvement District (BID) is set to be voted on next month by local businesses in the area. Known as ‘Station to Station’ the project it is an association of businesses between Tulse Hill and West Norwood Station that will have the power to promote businesses, invest in common services and help shape the area more generally to make it more friendly for everyone who uses local shops and businesses. 

The BID will now need to be formally constituted which involves all local businesses voting in a referendum on constituting a BID which will be held via a postal vote over the next month. 

If you need any details about this or are a local business that has not yet got involved – get in touch we would love to help. 

The BID hosted an impressive fashion show at the Portcio Gallery recently show casing local fashion designs and using local models. Station to Staion launched their manifesto which included aims to ring in more customers locally, and to make the area greener. It was a glamorous showcase for business, entrepreneurship and creativity in the Norwood community.

This is just the start. Lt’s hope that in the coming months this is the springboard for future events.  

For more information please see – 

http://stationtostation.london

https://westnorwoodandtulsehill.commonplace.is

16/00614/FUL – Installation of a roof top telecommunications base station and ancillary development

Residents on Trinity Rise, working in collaboration with your local cllrs, have successfully objected to the installation of a mobile phone mast on their street. 

Their opposition was based on a number of factors including possible health risks, the negative impact upon the areas conservation status and that the proposal would negatively impact on the skyline view from the park as it would change very much for the worse. 

Residents were also frustrated as it appeared that Metropolitan were intending going back on an agreement made in 2007 which said they would not install such a mast in Trinity – something which they have now given further assurances over and commitment to. 

One resident said that this issue “demonstrates very well how having the collective power of our association has helped us to win this campaign”. Something that we as local cllrs could not agree with more. 

16/00614/FUL – Installation of a roof top telecommunications base station and ancillary development

Ahead of 2016 GLA Assembly election we arranged for the Norwood Forum Chair, Noshir Patel, and Labour GLA candidate for Lambeth & Southwark, Flo Eshalomi, to conduct a walking tour of Lancaster Avenue and Thurlow Park Road with the bridge strike issue and subsequent road diversion the main topic of discussion.

As many of you may know, the bridge on Thurlow Park Road is the most hit in the country and the impact has been of growing significance to residents and business alike. The economic cost of delayed train and car journeys, the negative effect on air pollution, the impact on road safety, the actual damage to the bridge, and the cost to train operating companies.

As a reminder, we met with TfL and LARA residents last December 2015 and discussed a rage of short and long term strategies to help residents better cope with the ongoing issue. In the short term we had hoped to see better signage being installed. These would be “smart”, triggered only by oversized vehicles which should mean they are more effective. Otherwise, we had also hoped to see CCTV being installed to monitor and measure impact.

In the longer term we understood that TfL would be developing a business case for lowering the road as a way to prevent bridge strikes and to remove the need to divert any traffic down Lancaster Avenue. This will take some time because it is a complicated engineering challenge thanks to bridge foundations and the sewer. It will also have a huge impact on the road, as it would have to be closed for the works to be completed.

Florence was diligent in her questions and understood the need for something to be done as quickly as possible. She was keen to help and said that she would raise the matter, if elected, during Mayor’s question time.