Cemetery consultation

West Norwood Cemetery – the story so far

One of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ London cemeteries West Norwood Cemetery was opened in 1837. In 2016 a grant of £241,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund was awarded to Lambeth Council in partnership with the Friends of West Norwood Cemetery, to develop proposals to conserve and protect the cemetery for future generations.

Through out 2017 extensive specifically survey works were carried out in the cemetery to develop proposals to restore and provide improved access to historic monuments, to manage and conserve the natural and built environment, to improve facilities for visitors and develop an activities and volunteering programme.

Together these results have helped shape new, and exciting proposal that inform how further investment could be utilised.

Cllr Max Deckers Dowber has been part of the Steering Group set up to organise this work and we are keen, along with Lambeth Council, to share the progress made so far, to gather more views so that we are in the best possible position to incorporate such feedback into the official bid submission which we plan to submit in August 2018.

There will be a number of feedback sessions across SE27 between March 22 and April 22 2018 and you can access the public consultation questionnaire at www.lambeth.gov.uk/consultations

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Lambeth website is here – https://www.lambeth.gov.uk/births-deaths-marriages-and-civil-partnerships/deaths/the-south-metropolitan-west-norwood-cemetery

Project website is here – https://www.westnorwoodcemetery.org/

UPDATE – 

To offer your comments:

·  Complete the online West Norwood cemetery survey
·  Send your views by email to the team at norwoodhlf@lambeth.gov.uk.
·  Complete a paper survey, available from the West Norwood Cemetery office (located at the Cemetery entrance).
·  Go to one of the feedback sessions across West Norwood to meet the Project Team and see how the bid proposals are evolving:

Date Time Place
Sunday 1 April
12noon-2pm FEAST: West Norwood Cemetery (main entrance)

Thursday 5 April 10am-12noon West Norwood Cemetery, The Lodge (located near the main entrance)

Saturday 14 April 10am-12noon West Norwood Cemetery, The Lodge (located near the main entrance)

Tuesday 17 April 4-6:30pm West Norwood Health & Leisure Centre, Devane Way

The gathered feedback will be incorporated into the official bid submission to the HLF in August 2018.

Brockwell Park – Field Day festival update

In January 2018 Lambeth Cabinet gave the provisional approval for the Field Day festival to go ahead in Brockwell Park on the first weekend of June, and we have been working hard as your local Councillors to ensure that this festival, if it were to go ahead, is properly managed. Since these event proposals for Brockwell Park came to our attention we have been talking with the community to make sure that resident views are taken into account, and held a public event back in December 2017 for example to make sure residents could engage in the process and allow for them to have an opportunity to put their views forward.

After consulting with local residents we made an extensive submission to the Licensing Committee – the independent statutory body tasked with deciding whether Field Day has the permission to get a license to sell alcohol and host live music. In the main, we have made the case that the closing times need to be significantly reduced, that noise issues remain a concern and that we also have concerns about disturbances and anti-social behaviour. We will be at the Licensing Committee on the 4th April 2018 to represent residents.

Otherwise, we have also started on a provisional basis working with the community team from the Field Day event organisers. In the event the festival goes ahead we have already managed to secure agreement from Field Day for the protection of parking spaces in the area around the festival, for extensive rubbish clearance on all roads around the park and a commitment to attend initiate meetings with local businesses around possible opportunities the festival can bring to them. The plans are a long way from being ready but some constructive work is being under taken on this.

Furthermore, we have also secured a high level agreement to look again at features of the events policy relating to Brockwell Park. This would include setting a maximum cap on numbers in the park for any event, tighter noise controls and a trigger for public scrutiny. We are looking to set out a timetable for these reforms to govern any events in 2019 and reduce the overall events burden in Brockwell Park.

Finally, Cllr Fred Cowell will continue working with Brockwell Park Community Partners towards ensuring that Heritage Lottery funding can be used to improve Brockwell Hall as a basis for a more secure future for the park in order to develop long term funding, and investment security for Brockwell Park.

Ira Court visit and cllr response

As local cllrs we were in Ira Court recently, talking to residents about the issues that matter to them. A number of issues came up which we have taken action on:
• We have raised the problem of the broken lift in block A with L&Q who issued a 24 hour emergency job to the contractor to fix. We have expressed our disappointment that residents had to wait 10 days with no lift.

• We also raised a complaint about the broken panels in the ceiling of block B and L&Q have assured us that this work will be scheduled as soon as possible.

• A number of EU residents living in Ira Court expressed their concerns about what a Conservative hard Brexit means for their future living and working here. We have written to every EU citizen living in Ira Court to explain the work that we are doing to fight to protect the rights of EU citizens.

• We have raised residents’ concerns about smoking and antisocial behaviour in the stairwells and corridors with the local Safer Neighbourhoods police team and will ensure this is on the agenda at their next panel meeting.

As your local Labour councillors, we are always happy to help, and we regularly doorknock in the ward to listen to residents’ concerns, hold advice surgeries for residents to raise individual concerns, organise drop-in consultation events and public meetings on local issues, and attend resident association meetings.

Better Streets

Back in November 2017 we wrote on this blog about the exciting work we were undertaking to try and bring about better ways to help residents improve their streets. It is hoped that with resident engagement we will help to make local streets a better place to live; whether through greening, more trees, traffic calming measures, and improving road safety more generally.

After much discussion with both officers and residents we have been able to secure a drop in event for local residents on Saturday 24 March in the Salvation Army between 12:00 – 15:00. 

Flyers like the one below have been distributed across Thurlow Park, and we invite you to attend to share your ideas. There will be light refreshments available, Officers will be on hand to answer questions, and residents can complete the questionnaire which will also be available.

If you are not able to attend please do complete the online questionnnaire (www.lambeth.gov.uk/thurlowpark) or visit www.lambeth.gov.uk/ourstreets to find out more. The consultation will close on Friday 06 April 2018.

Our work on community safety on Cedar Close

Your local cllrs have been talking to residents in Cedar Close and a number of people have raised concerns about security following recent burglaries. We understand that a letter has been sent to the management company for Cedar Close requesting urgent action to improve the security of entrance doors, install enhanced security lighting and to keep vegetation adequately pruned.

As your local Labour team, we are very concerned that resident safety is being compromised by such basic security issues and that it has been necessary for residents to collectively write to Remus Management Ltd about this. This is unacceptable and, so we are contacting Remus Management Ltd ourselves, supporting the recent letter requesting action to improve security.

We are also aware that there have been several recent fly-tipping incidents in Cedar Close and are keeping an eye on this.

Pavement resurfacing – local successes

Throughout our time as your local Labour Councillors in Thurlow Park we have worked hard with residents and local community groups to create safer, cleaner and more accessible streets.

Having held individual resident meetings, attended resident association meetings, organised walkabouts, worked with our MP, arranged for Lambeth officers to visit streets in our ward, andlobbied the Cabinet lead responsible for streets, we are pleased to have been able to secure various resurfacing programmes to a number of streets across the ward – some of which had not been resurfaced for over 20 years despite residents’ best efforts!

Some of the roads or pavements that have undergone resurfacing so far include; Lovelace Rd, Carson Rd, Lavengro Rd, Idmiston Rd, Chatsworth Way, Deronda Rd, Trinity Rise , Brockwell Park Gardens, Guernsey Grove, Arduli Rd, Norwood Rd, Barston Rd, Tulsemere Rd, Towton Rd, Chancellor Grove, Thurlow Hill, Turney Rd, Rosendale Rd, Lancaster Avenue, and most recently, Hawarden Grove.

Despite deep Conservative Government cuts to Lambeth Council, we will continue to find ways to bring about the change that residents want, while continuing to work hard to ensure all parts of the ward have safe streets – streets that we can all be proud of.

If you think your street needs some resurfacing work please contact us and we’ll take a look. We’d also love to hear about any other improvements that you think would make this a better place to live. As local councillors we also regularly attend resident association meetings and arranged walkabouts with residents, so if you’d like to discuss in person, please get in touch to arrange this for your street.

No water in parts of West Norwood – an update from Thames Water and information on how to get help

Many residents have contacted us about the drop in water pressure or, in many cases, no water at all.

Cllr Fred Cowell has written urgently to Thames Water for information. They have sent us the following update:

“Following the recent freeze and rapid thaw, there have been multiple bursts on our water networks and an increase in leaks in and on customers’ properties. Not all areas are affected equally, but significant numbers of customers are currently without water or have low pressure. This has caused a huge amount of call to come into our call centre and we are doing our best to answer these but are also talking to a significant number of customers via social media.

We are putting as much extra water as we can into our local networks and fixing leaks and bursts as quickly as possible. This afternoon we fixed a burst on an 18” water main in SW16 and which will help bring back pressures in the area although issues with airlocks are also affecting some of our water pumping stations, such as the booster station in Brixton. We are also working hard to prioritise supplies for vulnerable customers and to provide bottled water. There is currently a bottled water station in the carpark at Homebase at 100 Woodgate Drive, Streatham Vale, SW16 5YP. We are constantly resupplying this location and will be setting up other sites tomorrow morning and will provide updates via social media and our websites.

Throughout this time we have been working closely with our Resilience partners and are working in coordination with many other organisations to resolve things as quickly as we can. In the meantime, could you let me know if there are any particularly vulnerable customer you would like me to highlight to our teams so we can make sure they get special attention and are looked after.”

As well as asking for issues in West Norwood to be resolved as quickly as possible, we are asking that a bottled water distribution site be set up urgently in West Norwood as travelling to Streatham for drinking water is unacceptable, especially for vulnerable or older residents, those with children and caring responsibilities, and those without cars.

If you or a neighbour needs additional help, please contact us on ABirley@lambeth.gov.uk, FCowell@lambeth.gov.uk and MDeckersDowber@lambeth.gov.uk

Our response to the consultation on the new low emission zone

Soon after his election the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, called for new proposals to urgently help tackle London’s lethal air pollution. The Mayor has already introduced the T-Charge in central London, bought forward the start date of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) for central London to 8 April 2019 and announced a series of measures to clean up London’s bus fleet.

TfL are now consulting on detailed proposals for two further initiatives to improve London’s air. These involve:

  • Tightening the standards of the existing London-wide Low Emission Zone from 2020, which affects heavy vehicles – buses, coaches and HGVs and other heavy specialist vehicles
  • Expanding the ULEZ for light vehicles (cars, vans and motorcycles) from central London to inner London up to, but not including the North and South Circular roads in 2021 so that all vehicles in this area are subject to emissions standards

The full proposals can be found here:  https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/environment/air-quality-consultation-phase-3b/#our proposals 

In Thurlow Park, they involve a new low emissions zone extending up to but not including the South Circular.

As your local Labour councillors, we have responded to the consultation calling on the zone to be wider, covering all of London rather than stopping at the South Circular.

Air quality is a very important
issue for us and our residents. Thurlow Park ward straddles the South Circular
and has a number of other strategically important roads that experience heave
traffic, including Norwood Road and Lancaster Avenue. 

These roads, and the
streets leading off them, experience high volumes of cars, buses, lorries and
vans. As a consequence, the air that residents living, working, walking and
cycling in our ward, and especially on these roads, is damaging their lungs.

We are therefore
very supportive of actions which TfL and the Mayor can take to tackle air
pollution and welcome a large Ultra Low Emissions Zone. We agree with proposals
that there should be tougher emissions standards, particularly given this will especially
impact the heavy vehicles that we experience disproportionately.

We also support
the expansion of the existing Low Emission Zone. However, we are very
disappointed that it is being proposed to go only as far as the south circular.
As shown by this map displaying data from the London Air website compiled by
Kings College London, the South Circular is the worst road in our
neighbourhood. It’s a residential road, and in just Thurlow Park goes past two
schools and very near to two more.

On any given day,
these homes and schools have around 15,000 vehicles driving east and a further
12,000 vehicles travelling west past their front doors, according to data
collected by TfL which we have published here: https://thurlowparklabour.org/post/166566971597/progress-made-in-our-campaign-for-a-safer-south

Other pollution
hotspots would be missed off the new zone too – in our ward, Norwood Road sees
higher traffic and pollution, as do Robson Road, Rosendale Road, Lancaster
Avenue and Croxted Road, for example, thanks to buses, delivery vehicles and
other traffic.

The current
proposals, up to and not including the South Circular, fail to take action on
the road in the greatest need of action and does nothing to tackle the
pollution hotspots south of this boundary. They create a situation which sees
only half of our residents breathing cleaner air, while some of the worst
affected areas see no change in regulation. We are also concerned that the new
zone will push the most pollution traffic south as drivers of vehicles affected
look for alternative routes that avoid the charge. We don’t want to see the
southern half of the ward become a rat run for London’s most polluting traffic.

By extending the
zone to cover the whole city, this scenario can be avoided. We would
therefore like to see the new zone expanded to cover the whole of London,
including the South Circular.

Time to get organising for this summer’s street parties!

We love street parties – not only are they great fun, they’re also a lovely way to meet your neighbours, create a strong community and reclaim your road from traffic for the day. 

We encourage our residents’ associations to organise one if they can, and over the last four years have provided many streets with the support they need to organise (and a cake for the event!).

If you’re planning one this summer, it’s time to start organising. While it remains free to close your street for the day, you have to hit the deadlines to get your permission in time:

If you haven’t organised a street party before, or you would value a refresher on how it’s done, Lambeth have put together a handy guide here: http://www.eventlambeth.co.uk/streetparties/

Please do invite us to come along to your street party – we would love to meet you and your neighbours and will happily join in with whatever you have planned, from Bake Off to egg & spoon race!

#SaveOurStations and Tory police cuts update

Throughout our time as your local councillors, we have been working with our local Safety Neighbourhood Team on various issues across the ward. This has included specific work surrounding ASB on the Peabody estate and on issues relating to more general concerns from residents, from burglaries to speeding, for example.

Community speed watch with the police and residents on Lancaster Avenue

In our time as Thurlow Park’s Labour councillors, we have witnessed Conservative cuts to the Met police budget that have had direct repercussions here in Lambeth. Serious violence has started to rise, police counters have all closed except for a single station in Brixton, neighbourhood policing is under threat.

Lambeth police will likely merge with Southwark police to form one new ‘Borough Command Unit’ with a single Commander, 5 superintendents straddling the two boroughs, and approximately 1400 officers. Many of you have raised this with us, especially your concerns about knife crime and increasing anti-social behaviour.

As a measure to try and help our local police forces the Mayor of London is being forced to increase Lambeth residents’ council tax by £14.20 (band D) to plug a portion of the huge funding gap: https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/mayor-proposes-27p-per-week-council-tax-increase

Further measures set out by the Mayor of London for the coming financial year include:

  • £20m to pay for long awaited 2% pay rises for hard working police officers who are otherwise struggling to stay living in London as rents and the cost of living rise faster than wages
  • £13.9m to pay for recruitment to maintain staff numbers
  • £15m to tackle knife/youth violence – Cabinet Lead Mohammed Seedat will meet MOPAC to decide how this money is used in Lambeth

As your local cllrs we will continue to work with our Safety Neighbourhood Team to support their efforts in the ward and keep people safe. We supported the Lambeth Labour #SaveOurStations campaign and helped to deliver leaflets in the ward as well as support the online petition.

As a result of our campaign in Lambeth and other campaigns across London, the Mayor of London has promised 2 dedicated neighbourhood police officers per ward, while the Deputy Mayor for policing has acknowledged the importance of neighbourhood policing and as a result new ‘contact sessions’ in every ward means police will be engaging with residents more directly. This is very welcome and we have already seen #cuppawithacopper contact sessions begin. Our team in Thurlow Park advertise their contact sessions here.

As your local councillors, we will continue to attend the Safer Neighbourhood Ward panels as it even more essential to support our local neighbourhood policing teams as they try to mitigate the effects of cuts to their service. We have started monthly ASB and community safety surgeries on the Peabody Estate at 10.30am on the last Monday of the month and work closely with Peabody’s community safety team. We helped to roll out Smart Water to tackle rising burglary rates and support residents to run neighbourhood watches.

We want to reassure residents that despite cuts, we continue to work to ensure all parts of the ward are included in police patrols and we meet with officers to highlight areas of concern or which need greater attention.

Map showing where the Thurlow Park safer neighbourhood team patrolled on 8th February