It’s Night Tube time!

The first Night Tube services begin TONIGHT! Running on the Central and Victoria lines from tonight, the service will be extended to the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines in Autumn. It will offer a 24-hour service on Friday and Saturday nights.This means that tonight trains will run every 10 mins to and from Brixton, with the 37, N2 and N3 bringing residents back to Thurlow Park through the night from Brixton station. There will be an enhanced police service during overnight services to ensure that the Tube remains a safe, low crime environment.

After the delays to the rollout of night time services, we are thrilled that Sadiq Khan has managed to come to a resolution with staff and unions that everyone is happy with and deliver the new service within just first 100 days of office.

Cleaner greener bus for Brixton

The Labour Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has confirmed his plans for Low Emission Bus Zones across London. These will identify the most polluted routes and prioritise them for the greenest buses in order to clean up our toxic air.

From October 2017, this will see big improvements to the A23 route between Brixton and Streatham. This route will be served exclusively by hybrid or diesel buses with top of the range anti pollutant systems whoch meet or exceed European standards. Lambeth is one of the two first schemes to benefit from the new plans and it is expected to reduce NOx emissions by over 80%.

Cllr Jennifer Brathwaite, Lambeth’s Cabinet Member for Environment & Transport said: “This is great news in the fight to improve London’s air quality. Brixton and Streatham see a huge amount of buses travelling through and it has had a real impact on air quality in the area. In Lambeth, we are determined to see our air quality improve and we welcome the new low emission bus zone – it is something that we have been lobbying the Mayor for and it is encouraging that he seems as determined as we are to make a difference. We will continue to work with the Mayor and TfL to make Lambeth a cleaner and safer place to live.”

See more information from the Brixton BID here.

Bridge strike in Tulse Hill…

… but a different bridge to normal.

The bridge over Thurlow Park Road is the UK’s most frequently hit bridge, but today, it was the railway bridge over Norwood Road that caused the problems.

Norwood Road is currently closed to traffic as emergency services deal with this:

And earlier, the bridge was hit by a vehicle transporting vans, causing delays to traffic and trains.

Lambeth Labour part of council delegation to visit Calais with Citizens UK

Lambeth Deputy Leader, Paul McGlone, is part of a delegation of senior councillors to visit Calais with Citizens UK, calling on government to do more for child refugees.

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Lambeth Labour has committed to support refugees, and has let the government know that we are ready to help children coming from conflicts across the world. In April, Lambeth Leader Lib Peck welcomed the first family settling here from Syria.

We have thrown our support behind the Liberty and Help Refugees campaign to Protect Refugee Children, calling on government to urgently play its part. In May 2016, the Government committed to working with councils across the UK to resettle an unspecified number of children. Three months later and no action has been taken to deliver on this promise, despite support from Lambeth and other councils across the country. You can see more on the campaign and the pledge that Lambeth has signed here.

Norwood Foodbank needs supplies – can you help?

Norwood Foodbank is experiencing a busy summer and has low stocks – we need you to donate. Next time you go shopping, could you pick up UHT rice pudding, custard, toilet rolls and biscuits. They also urgently need nappies in sizes 4plus, 5 and 6.

As the school term approaches, the foodbank also needs donations of school uniform appropriate for schools in Norwood and Streatham – no logos and all sizes!

Take a dip for charity?

Come down to the Brockwell Lido on 8th October to support the swimmers braving the autumnal cold to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support – or better still join them!

There is still time to register and train for the event – participants swim 2km or 5km, and under 18s can swim 1.5km. Alternatively, enter with a team of friends and family to swim a relay.

For information and to register, check out www.macmillan.org.uk/alloutswimbrockwell

Helen Hayes MP writes about homelessness

Helen Hayes, MP for Dulwich and West Norwood explains why she is supporting a private members bill which calls for measures to reduce homelessness.

Helen has been doing a lot of work on housing, through casework at her regular surgeries with residents and through her role on the Communities and Local Government Committee. It is a huge issue here in Lambeth – every week residents come to us and to Helen for help as they are threatened with homelessness or have experienced it.

While the council is doing all it can to build new council homes and support vulnerable residents, more needs to be done to ensure that people who are in desperate housing need are not turned away. The Housing (Homeless Persons) Act of 1977 went a long way to ensure homeless people with priority needs are housed – Helen’s work with her colleagues on the Select Committee will, almost 40 years later, seek to build on this reform.

You can read Helen’s article here –

Labour MPs must unite in support of the Homelessness Reduction Bill

Update on Quietways next steps – changes we’re pushing for

Last Autumn a surprise announcement of an experimental road closure on Rosendale Road mobilised the community. As your local councillors, we worked with businesses, residents and community groups to oppose the closure and successfully got it taken off the table. We organised a series of codesign workshops to make sure that TfL, Lambeth and Sustrans listened to residents’ concerns and ideas. We have consistently said that we are keen to encourage and enable cycling, but that this should be done collaboratively with local communities, not in a way which creates conflict between cyclists, local residents and local businesses.

Once the feedback from workshops was brought together, the designs went to public consultation – advertised online as well as in letters which went to 4,200 addresses in Thurlow Park. Over 250 residents responded to the consultation, and many got in touch with us too.

Residents who contacted us were also keen to understand the next steps, and we’re aware that there has been a long period with no updates on progress. The mayoral election caused some delay, but mostly the volume of responses meant it has taken officers a long time to process everything. Their published report will provide a detailed response to every query raised by you in the consultation.

Timeline:
September – The report with answers to queries raised in the consultation and a breakdown of people’s answers will be published
September-October – New proposals will be published and put to formal consultation
January – If the new proposals are agreed from the second consultation, work will take place

From talking and corresponding with many of you, we’re aware that there is still a lot of unhappiness with the proposals. We have been pushing for changes to the proposals ahead of any new designs being put forward. We’ve met with the cabinet member and officers in Lambeth, and highlighted the changes we need to see in any new designs for the scheme to be acceptable to local residents as well as improving cycling.

In particular, we are working on:

  • Significantly reducing the number of parking spaces lost
  • Ensuring good access to the allotments
  • Greening at the junction of Rosendale and Turney Roads
  • Tackling rat running on Dalmore Road and Carson Road
  • Preventing any changes to the junction of Rosendale and Parkhall Roads which make traffic worse

Events Strategy for Brockwell park

Thurlow Park Councillors have been working with the Cabinet leadership and the Brockwell Park Community Partners to develop a new events strategy to help manage events in the park for the benefit of the community. Brockwell Park is at the heart of the local community and needs to be well cared for so Everyone can enjoy the space for many years to come. 

Events, of all sorts, are part of park life and many people in the local community and from afar have enjoyed everything from open-air theatre to house music at Brockwell Park. There has been some considerable concern with the way events have been conducted and managed in Brockwell Park over July, especially over the level of noise and the problems associated with clearing up after the events.

To help manage events better for the community a new strategy is coming into place from the Autumn onwards. This will allow greater scrutiny and control over events, which will be devolved from the town hall to the community. The outline of the new events framework is as follows;

• The Brockwell Park Community Partners in conjunction with us will lead in defining the conditions for new events
• The decision to veto events taking place will rest with the community groups and the local Cllrs. Previously the decision was taken centrally by events team staff.
• When the council reviews the event plans to see if it complies with health and safety standards, they will also be reviewed for their impact on the community. This will assess whether the clean up plans are adequate and they have given due care and attention to the impact event will have on the wider neighbourhood.
• There will be an increase in revenue from each event going directly back into Brockwell Park that the Brockwell Community Park Community Partners will allocate.
• There will be community feedback sought after each event to gather views about how run the event more effectively in the future.

We are committed to minimising the negative impact that events can have on the park by not permitting events to be run on consecutive weekends and by imposing tight conditions on the duration of sound levels. Please do write to us further about any issues you have with the park in the future.