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.

Peabody bus – public meeting this Thursday

We hope that lots of you will be able to join us at 7.30 on Thursday 26th March to discuss proposals for a bus service to the Peabody Estate. The proposal comes out of many years of campaigning by residents on the estate and seeks to help connect up an isolated part of the ward with shops, transport links, places of work and local services.

The meeting this week will be attended by your local councillors, the residents’ association, Val Shawcross, deputy chair of the London Assembly Transport Committee and Dania Fitzgerald, Head of Neighbourhoods at Peabody.

This is not a formal consultation – this is scheduled to take place in June. Transport for London will be fully involved then. Until then, we hope the meeting will allow us to feedback community thoughts, comments or questions to TfL.

The purpose on Thursday’s meeting is to –
• Hear from councillors, Peabody, the residents’ association and Val Shawcross
• Share your views ahead of the consultation
• Ask questions
• Meet your neighbours!

We will be recording and feeding everything back to TfL so that residents’ ideas and concerns can be taken into account as TfL officers develop their detailed proposal.

In the past, residents rarely have much opportunity to have input into proposals before the consultation begins, by which point the detailed plans have already been drawn up. We’re keen that residents are included much earlier in the process.

Max, Anna and Fred were recently sent an update from planning enforcement regarding two issues on Thurlow Park rd and Norwood rd. 

1 – A highly visible railings built around the roof of a property along Thurlow Park Road were removed – ensuring that the use of the roof as a terrace (causing overlooking) could no longer continued. 

2 – A timber enclosure on Norwod rd was also removed from a roof at the rear of a Grade II listed building reinstating the listed building in the process.The roof was being used as a terrace and the timber structure was detrimental to the special character of the building.

A215 Norwood Road junction with Chatsworth Way – traffic lights

Transport for London (TfL) has appointed CVU to replace the traffic lights at Norwood Road junction with Chatsworth Way. Works will be taking place on the footway. To ensure the safety of road users temporary traffic lights will be deployed on site during these works.

The Traffic Signals that have reached the end of their 15 year life cycle and the modernisation of the traffic signals will improve reliability and maintenance.

A1215 Norwood Road junction with Chatsworth Way is an important route for through road uses, and as such is a difficult route to maintain. The work has a number of phases in order to reduce the amount of disruption caused and to maintain road capacity as much as possible at all times.

The improvement works are planned to start on 02 March 2015 and continue for approximately eight weeks depending on the weather conditions. The works will be carried out in phases, with day time footway works taking place Monday to Friday between the hours of 08:00 and 18:00. Saturday works will be taking place between the hours of 08:00 and 13:00.

Should you require further information or an update during the delivery of these works please contact Streets Customer Services department on 0343 222 1234 or email: customerservices@tfl.gov.uk or via the web at www.tfl.gov.uk/contact.

Norwood Forum – community event

The Norwood Forum is holding a community funding event on Saturday 7th March between 2-5pm at the Old Library on Knights Hill.

They are looking for local community minded residents and invite you to come along to support and vote for your favourite local project. They have 4 pots of £400 and so far, 6 projects to choose from. The timetable for the event is is as follows;

1-2 projects set up their tables

2-3 3 minute presentation from each group

3-4 Time to vote

4-5 Counting of the votes and winners announced, cheques presented.

Please feel free to pass these details onto any local groups you may have connections with as it’s not too late for them to sign up. Friday 6th is the last day for applications. Applicants can email info@norwoodforum.org or to call Jan Ware on 07812 260906.

Peabody bus proposal – update

In response to many years of work by the Peabody Tenants’ Association, local councillors and our local Assembly Member, Transport for London have said that a bus route to the Upper Peabody estate would be practical
and have agreed in principle that such a service is possible. In taking
this proposal forward, they will thoroughly test and consult before anything
is decided or put in place. 

To be clear, no bus route to
the Upper Peabody estate has been decided on, and it would not go ahead
without a full consultation involving local residents. Its route, its
impact on local streets, and the bus stops
will all be up for discussion.

In order to start this process we are
holding a public meeting on 26th March, 7:30 – 9pm, at the community hall on the Upper Peabody estate. Please join us – we want to hear what you have to say.

To answer a few questions
that have been circulating recently – we don’t anticipate a significant
reduction in parking, although we do hope that a local bus service
would reduce the need for car travel. In regard to
the recent drawing of double yellow lines on the Upper Peabody estate in
supposed advance of a bus service coming this has not been done in
response to councillors, Lambeth Council or Transport for London. This
is a Peabody decision and we were not consulted,
informed or advised of yellow lines being drawn.

Tenants on the Peabody estate – both Lower and Upper – have been asking
for a bus service for a long time and were instrumental in getting the
proposal this far. A survey of residents on
the Upper Peabody estate has been conducted and Peabody received an
overwhelming response in favour of it. Residents of both the Upper
Peabody estate and the Birkbeck Triangle have written to us to express
their support – for many, particularly older residents,
parents with young children and disabled, the steep hill is a huge
barrier to going to the shops, visiting friends or getting to work, and a
bus will go a long way to helping. 

All the above is open for discussion and consultation. We hope that
you look to attend the public meeting next month in order to help shape
the debate surrounding this bus proposal.

Update 20/02/2015: In response to residents’ concerns that work was being carried out without their consultation, Peabody have halted the line drawing. We have had a guarantee from them that they will wait until anything is certain before drawing lines for a bus. Some yellow lines have been drawn which are nothing to do with the potential bus service, but which reiterate no parking zones already there. An additional carparking facility is being added to the estate which should create an additional 30 car parking spaces, so any loss of space should a bus service commence will be at least equalled by this new facility. We expressed residents’ concerns that carparks are poorly lit and do not feel safe, so better lighting will also be installed.

FREE Confidence Building workshop

On Monday, 16 February between 3:30 – 6:30pm there is a FREE Confidence Building workshop that you are invited to register for. 

This interactive workshop focuses on anti-bullying, child protection, anger management and peer mentoring and is delivered through a series of role plays, games and movie clips. The aim is to equip you, as a parent or carer, with life skills and provides you with practical ‘step by step’ techniques to reduce bullying or anger to which your child may be exposed, be it in school, via internet or friendship groups. It is designed to help you understand how you, as a parent or carer, can help your child confront and overcome this type of behaviour.

If you are interested in taking part, please register by contact the telephone numbers below by Monday 9 February. The venue is High Tress CDT, 220 Upper Tulse Hill, SW2 2NS

Eva Christmas, Roupell Park       07983 584 767              

Aileen Garden, Tulse Hill Forum   07886 562 686

Sarah Coyte, Lambeth Council     07852 916 199

Cllr Max Deckers spoke at Council last week in response to Cllr Jackie Medlrum’s update to a question regarding Hearing Suppport Services in Lambeth’s schools.

Firstly, let me assure you that we are committed to having in place a Hearing Support Service (HSS) that meets the needs of the children and young people who need it, has the confidence of parents/carers and young people and reflects the best advice that is available about good practice.

Currently the HSS in Lambeth consists of two elements: an Outreach Service and a primary provision based at Jubilee Primary School, a partner school in the Loughborough Federation of Schools. In addition there is a secondary resource base at Elmgreen School for deaf pupils.

I understand that changes at Jubilee Primary School and the relocation of the Outreach Service to the Kennington Park site, to join the Visual Support Service, have caused some concern and uncertainty.

For background, over recent years the provision at Jubilee has seen some changes both in terms of the numbers of pupils attending and the way the pupils are supported. In 2010/11 there were 19 pupils but in 2014/15 numbers have reduced to 4. Pupils now spend virtually their whole time supported in mainstream classes whereas previously they tended to be educated separately in a special unit.

We are currently considering the future of this service. During the autumn term the Council carried out a consultation with families, schools & others to determine the future provision for deaf children and young people in Lambeth. A report describing the provision and how it will be commissioned will be published early in 2015. The recommendations will take into account the concerns and wishes of the parents, professionals and concerned organisations who contributed to the consultation.

Planning Conservation – draft

Working with the Counil we invite your comments on the council’s new draft Building Alterations and Extensions SPD.

Lambeth’s emerging Local Plan is due to be adopted later this year; when adopted it will replace the Unitary Development Plan (UDP) in providing the planning policy for the whole borough. When finalised the Building Alterations and Extensions SPD will help people who wish to alter their buildings understand the planning requirements and will illustrate what is and is not be considered appropriate.

In recent years Lambeth has seen a significant change in its housing market. Rising property prices and stamp duty are discouraging many residents from moving to larger properties and there is greater interest to enlarge existing properties rather than move. This ‘don’t move – improve’ approach is one that is increasingly common across London and the South East.

A number of consultees on the emerging Local Plan reiterated this position and asked the Council to consider a more pro-development approach to extensions than is taken in the Unitary Development Plan (UDP). As a result Policy Q11 of the emerging Local Plan has allowed for a greater degree of interpretation in terms of rear extensions and roof extensions outside conservation areas than was previously the case. The new draft SPD also reflects this approach.

The council’s Cabinet has approved the draft document for consultation and wishes to hear the views of the community on this matter. The consultation period runs from Monday 2 February to Monday 30 March 2015 (5pm)

If you wish to respond to the consultation please e-mail: planningconservation@lambeth.gov.uk

The Future of Cultural Services in Lambeth

The council is launching a consultation on the future of cultural services in Lambeth. This sets out a vision for how we can deliver library services sustainably, in the face of huge cuts to our funding from the national government.

In
2012 we talked to residents about libraries. They challenged us on how we could provide free access to
books wider than ever before. They challenged us to use self serve
technology, volunteers and community spaces to create new places in the
heart of our neighbourhoods to borrow books and embrace reading.

Lambeth Council is now launching a consultation which shares our
vision for how we might deliver this. Please get involved, feedback your ideas and tell us what you think.

Our vision is –

  • 5 town centre libraries where we’ll work with volunteers to extend opening hours
  • those town centre libraries supporting a wider Network of community
    lending libraries in community settings – like the successful one in
    Streatham Vale.
  • community libraries like Carnegie potentially becoming community hubs – including community library provision.

This vision isn’t new – it’s the continuation of a conversation we’ve
been having for a long time. But the pace needs to pick up to achieve the budget
reductions that are now necessary.

We’ll have to make some tough decisions too. Some smaller libraries
simply won’t be able to continue. In West Norwood, we are lucky – the council and Picturehouse have exchanged contracts to develop Nettlefold Hall into a refurbished library and a new cinema for our community. There are going to be lots of opportunities to have your say on what our library will look like – watch this space!

For further information, take a look at Lambeth Labour’s blog here