Save the Velodrome

Wednesday night I attended the [url=http://www.savethevelodrome.com]Save the Herne Hill Velodrome[/url] meeting. It is amazing good fortune that we have a historic Velodrome on our doorsteps. So far over 3,500 people have joined the [url=http://facebook.com/savethevelodrome]Facebook group[/url].

The Save the Velodrome committee went through the maths. Predicted costs of £120,000 a year with revenue of £70,000.
How to close that gap?

Once a way of closing that gap is identified the capital costs of resurfacing the track of £190,000 to £240,000 can be found and then around £2M to fully develop the Velodrome to last another 112 years. One idea would be to pay capital to obtain the site on a minimal peppercorn rent. That could help bridge £15,000 of the revenue gap.

I’ve been really impressed with the committee, set up to save the Velodrome, and also the Dulwich Estate for its continued patience and not looking for a quick unsustainable fix. But also the huge ground swell of support. We just need to turn that ground swell into real visits now.

Six years ago the velodrome was in a similar position but the fix was short term. I’m sure this time round everyone involved will ensure we don’t fall for a short term fix again.

Grove Vale library

In 2005 I spotted that developer had made a Planning Application for 18-22 Grove Vale where the Dulwich Garden Centre is. The scheme look at best dull. Equally the Grove Vale library is two small shops unit poorly linked together. Great library in terms of children’s books etc but poor building to provide library services.

So I approached the developer and suggested that if they included a new Grove Vale library their scheme would be more successful. That turned into a long two years working with the developer, council officers and colleagues to incorporate a new 230m2 Grove Vale library which gained planning permission January 2007.

Then the recession hit. BANG. All property values slumped but more importantly since then it has become REALLY hard to borrow money. One surveyor told me you can’t borrow money outside London and in London banks expect 35% margins to borrow ie a big cushion just in case.

So I’ve had many conversations with the developer about what might be possible. I’ve spoken to Southwark libraries about what could/would work to give a great new library. Various rules around insulation are now much tighter – new part L building regs today, Southwark Core Strategy where all rooms have to be bigger, etc.

After a lot of soul searching I’m hopeful we’ve sailed a route which should give us a new 250m2 +50m2 ‘winter garden’ Grove Vale library. It would be behind a new retail unit at the front with library accessed via a 3 metre wide corridor at the back. The residential flats above would reduce to 21 units.

Yesterday I met with the developers team and Southwark Planning officials to witness the hurdles and issues the developer needs to bridge before submitting a full Planning Application. I’m hopefully these wont take long and a scheme can be submitted in November or January.

If you have any questions or thoughts about this please get in touch.

Hopefully I’ll have some images to share soon. 

Northcross Road market expansion?

For some time the East Dulwich councillors have been proposing an expansion to Northcross Road Market on Saturdays. It’s a success at 20 stalls and appears Northcross Road has plenty of space for more stalls.

We’re already arranging electric pop up points so the stalls will have electricity and they’ll no longer need to run minim generators but more stalls say 30 or even 40 would really make the market more successful.

Southwark council is now consulting on expanding the market. They’re proposing that it increases from 20 to 30 stalls but importantly this expansion would apply not just to Saturdays but also Mon-Fri and add an extra market day on Sundays.

We feel Sunday isn’t a good idea. It would mean residents don’t get a single day of peace or quiet and the inconveniences they currently suffer without complaining would increase and potentially become intolerable. Equally expanding Mon-Fri probably when the current stalls aren’t used is pointless and will increase local residents fears.

Whatever your view and whether residents, visitor, stallholder, or other local business please do respond to the consultation via: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/northcrossroadmarket

4 October – food recycling and fortnightly bin collections start

A pilot scheme involving 10,000 homes in Southwark starts on Monday 4 October. The pilot involves adding organic waste i.e. food to the weekly recycling collections via 240L, 23L and caddy brown bins and also biodegradeable plastic bags.

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Those homes in the pilot will have received a non addressed letter a month ago and another leaflet this week. Hopefully you didn’t miss it!

Clearly many will be surprised come Monday with the letter and leaflet being lost in the general masses of junk mail/leaflets we all receive. To confirm if you’re in or out of the scheme you can call 020 7525 2000 – I was assured people could check this via the web but this is still not up and running.

For those that are in the scheme not all homes on a street are necessarily in the pilot – if council officers felt insufficient room to store a brown bin then they’re not included. So you can expect neighbouring properties to have either weekly or fortnightly ‘residial ‘ rubbish collections – you’ll need to pay close attention!

If you have any problems please let me know and I’ll try and help.

BT Superfast broadband coming to Southwark.

BT Openreach have contacted me to talk about their superfast broadband – initially 40Mbs downstream and 10Mbs upstream.
The Dulwich exchange will have super fast broadband from March 2011.

I’ve done a little investigation and all exchanges serving Southwark will have been upgraded to superfast broadband by end of 2011 – back end loaded Sept-Dec 2011. www.superfast-openreach.co.uk

(Bermondsey Sep’11, Beulah Hill Mar’11, Brixton Sep’11, Forst Hill Mar’11, Gipsy Hill Sep’11, New Cross Dec’10, Southwark/Borugh dec’11, Vauxhall/Kennington Oct’10, Walworth Dec’11). Not clear about Southbank but suspect it doesn’t serve homes.

To make this work they are talking about Fibre To The Cabinet so we may see some BT digging but mostly cable pulling in the next 15 months across Southwark and in Dulwich during the next 6 months.

I’m super keen to support this. Any and all improvements to our broadband will reduce the need for many to travel. It helps people work from home – which reduces crime. So I’ve asked how Southwark Council can help this rollout happen and stick to its plans.

Fortnightly bin collections – trial starts October!

4 October a pilot starts to change the recycling and rubbish collections to 10,000 residential homes and flats – street properties.

Attached is the only information I’ve received so far on who and where it will affect.

Basic premise is recycling is still every week but organic matter will be also be collected. All other rubbish will be collected fortnightly. The dreaded fortnightly collections – this shouldn’t be an issue if the organic waste process and collections work well.

One unresolved issue was no disposal contract of the collected organic waste yet…this really worried me as the pilot will disintegrate if people find all their collection efforts are in vain. (Monday 27/9 contract in place to take the waste 50miles to Isle of Sheppey for disposal).

Until I find out a lot more please feel free to email me with any concerns or issues. We absolutely must increase the recycling rate but this pilot is very rushed without any consultation and has lots of potential to go wrong. So any problems please let me know right away so we can keep it working.

Disappointed that the pilot hasn’t included any blocks of flats as they’ll be the biggest challenge with most to learn as they don’t have front gardens to keep extra wheelie bins.

Dulwich Pool

The Dulwich Pool reopens this Friday 24 September 6.30am with adult swimming lanes.

Last week I popped in to take a pre opening peek with my ward colleagues Cllr Rosie Shimell and Cllr Jonathan Mitchell. it looked fab.

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It was 2005 and Cllr Richard Thomas and I were discussing with East Dulwich residents what did the area need. Renovating Dulwich Leasure Centre including its pool became one of our key 2006 manifesto pledges. It’s taken five months longer for phase 1 and will have taken 10 month for phase 2 (the gym) than we promised but I’m still chuffed to bits that its happened – huge project considering the building listed and has been kept largely open while the works have taken place.

Do pop along and see what all the fuss has been about this coming weekend and let me know if you like the changes….

Lee Valley Park

Lee Valley Park – mostly 10,000 acres in Essex and Hertfordshire – was created in the 1960’s as a regional park.

When it was created a levy system was created and this year Southwark residents will pay £294,190 towards its upkeep.

What do Southwark residents get for this?

When I’ve contacted the park authority to ask how many Southwark residents use this park in Essex and Hertfordshire with a tiny sliver down into east London they told me a couple of Southwark school classes had visited last year.

I think this money would be better spent on Southwark parks. Hell, our money would be better spent on Lewisham or Lambeth parks as we know at least some of our residents visit their parks.

Where do you think your £292,190 should be spent – Southwark parks or a Essex/Hertfordshire park? 

Cemeteries

Southwark runs several current and closed cemeteries – Nunhead Cemetery, Camberwell Old Cemetery, Camberwell New Cemetery.

The issues around illegal dumping of building materials nearly resolved with the planting of new bushes etc taking place in October. It’s taken over 18months to get this sorted.

Southwark has only one years supply of spaces for burials.

Officers have options to suggest to provide more burial spaces of either reusing common graves if they obtained Home Office approval – this involves adding 2foot above the current plots (which are only 4 foot deep) with their initial thoughts being using lots of concrete blocks to add the required extra height. This would be contrary to Southwark’s climate change strategy as concrete is a really really high carbon option. This option would give another 10-12 years of burial plots. Seconf option is to use an adjacent sports playing field giving another 25 years of burial plots.

What I hadn’t appreciated is that when you ‘buy’ a plot you’re effectively renting it for 50years. Naively I’d also thought it was for ever. So one option officers will suggest is reducing that 50 year period. That does’nt feel right to me as 50 year is so much shorter than I’d imagine and 50 years should out see most relatives lives.

It’s also suggested Southwark burials are really cheap by London standards. I’m not yet convinced of this. The main price is much cheaper but pricing is so complicated with so many exceptions and extras. Not sure you can compare prices other than the average price which I’ve not seen yet. I recall when the Lib Dems increased prices that the Labour opposition was up in arms so it will be interesting what they propose to solve the lack of burial plots gonig forward without changing prices.

A less pressing problem but bigger is how to permanently improve our cemeteries and take them beyond the drab state they’re currently in.

Recycling rate and amount 2009/2010

The last full Southwark council year hasa just been reported to me – delayed due to Valuation Office Agency (VOA) not issuing figures of how many homes in Southwark.

The recycling rate (National Indicator 192) was 22.13%. Disappointing as the expected rate was 24%.

Amount of rubbish per home (NI191) 696.13Kg which is slightly down from the previous years amount of 703.61kg.  This has been delayed as Southwark has an extra 1,331 homes.

NI193 is the percentage sent to landfill 45.70%.