Author: tgntra

Email from BVAG – meeting 18th February at 6.30pm

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Southwark Council run out of excuses –

Neighbourhood plan finally on the starting blocks
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Meeting
Wednesday 18 February Globe House 6.30pm

Last wednesday evening’s Council-hosted meeting was as unfocused and inconclusive as we expected. For all the Council’s lecturing on the necessity for broad community engagement in the Community Planning process they demonstrated a dismal failure to engage with local people themselves: Aside from BVAG supporters, they managed to attract scarcely a handful of representatives from the area that they defiantly designated. Council community planning PR woman and double-agent, Juliet Seymour, failed to see the irony in preaching to the meagre meeting the necessity of broad community awareness and participation.

We have been forced to attend countless meetings knowing that, pointless or not, the Council would exploit any failure to show up. Needless to say, one more was water off a duck’s back. On the positive side, the Council really have now run out of excuses for refusing to process our application for Neighbourhood Forum status. With new Localism Act amenments forcing reluctant councils to comply with time limits to determine neighbourhood forum applications and a letter from our lawyers threatening Judicial Review the delay game is almost over.

In a final gesture of defiance Southwark have stalled us further by claiming that our application is defective as to the terms of our Constitution, a requirement for a new name to reflect their imposed neighbourhood area and some other minor technicalities. Since they could have raised such issues two-and-a-half years ago but in fact accepted our application as valid, nobody is under any illusion about their true purpose. Nonetheless, as with acceptance of their dictated area, our simplest course is just to give them what they want by way of technicalities. For this purpose we are holding a meeting next Wednesday 18 February to finalise the new or varied information that has been demanded (see letter from Mark Williams 26 Jan here).

Also for discussion is a BVAG response to any matters in the new Southwark Plan, presently in its ‘consultation’ phase. In particular we will want to express a position on high-rise buildings, conservation and housing policies. Whilst we know Southwark’s long-established attitude to consultation and the opinions of local people, if we are looking for a real change through localism we need to at least set out our stall for the record in this ‘consultation’.

Fix it at home videos.

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Southwark Council has recently produced a series of videos about those repairs around your home that are easy to fix yourself, but only if you know how.

The videos give you a step by step guide on how to unblock your toilet or sink, change your bathroom and kitchen lights, set up your central heating correctly and change and test your smoke alarm. They are not the most glamorous of jobs but definitely important for keeping your home running smoothly.

Our repairs and maintenance service looks after over 50,000 homes across the borough. Every year, we receive thousands of calls to help you manage small repairs around your home. By showing you how to do these yourself within the comfort of your home, we hope to save you time and money. Reducing these callouts will also help the repairs team focus their time and expertise on more complex repairs. As we try and meet the large cuts to council funding without affecting frontline services, reducing callouts for repairs which are not our responsibility is a key priority.

All the videos are simple and easy to follow, and are based on what our own expert plumbers and electricians would do themselves. There is no complicated equipment needed. So make sure you check out the videos and recommend them to your family and friends. And watch this space as there are more to come.

To watch the videos go to http://www.southwark.gov.uk/fixitathome or http://www.youtube.com/southwarkcouncil

Change of heating contractor from 11th May 2015

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MESSAGE SENT ON BEHALF OF DAVID LEWIS, HEAD OF MAINTENANCE & COMPLIANCE, SOUTHWARK COUNCIL.

Dear colleagues,

I just wanted to let you know that after a significant period of review, we have decided mutually to bring our contract with heating contractor T Brown to an end. T Brown currently provides the heating contract in Bermondsey, Borough and Bankside, Peckham and Nunhead and Peckham Rye and borough-wide services for water treatment and dry risers. The heating contract covers the annual gas servicing programme for council tenants who have an individual boiler as well as the responsive service for individual and district boilers.

Arrangements have been put in place for contractors OCO to take over the remainder of the T Brown contract. OCO are our heating contractors for the rest of the borough and have consistently proved themselves our best performing heating contractor. The change will be effective from 11 May 2015 until the existing contract ends in March 2016. Plans are already well advanced for the procurement of new heating contractors when the current contract comes to an end.

We have not taken this decision lightly, but are now agreed that this mutual termination of the contract is in the best interests of everyone involved, especially our tenants.

Regards

David

February Half-Term Tennis Camps.

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February holiday camps (week)

A great chance for your child to play every day, improve quickly and keep fit.  The final day of each course is based around friendly competition.

Juniors are required to join the Club to attend coaching sessions.  The cost is £10 for the year, please fill in the form by clicking the following click:

http://www.beactivesocialenterprise.com/membership/

Burgess Park Tennis Centre

Camps from 10am to 1pm (weeks beginning Monday 16 to Friday 21 February),

Ages 5 – 17

* Price £35

Tanner Street Park

10-12am – ages Under 10 and beginners. 

* Cost £20

* Price is for advanced booking – places can be booked on Monday for £5 more (subject to availability).

All courses require a minimum number of participants to go ahead.  Advanced notice and full refunds will be given if we have to cancel any course.

http://www.beactivesocialenterprise.com/online-store/junior-camps/february-camp/#cc-m-product-6476194252

REMINDER: New Southwark Plan Workshop – 12th February 6.30pm-8.30pm

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When and Where? 6.30pm-8.30pm, Southwark Council Offices, 160 Tooley Street, SE1 2TZ
NSO1057

The Council is reviewing the Southwark Plan and Core Strategy to prepare a local plan called the New Southwark Plan. This new plan will set out a regeneration strategy for the next 10-15 years and will be used to make decisions on planning applications. The Council have commissioned an interactive map which will be on-line from mid to late February that will allow interested parties to zoom in on sites and click on sites to provide any detailed comments. The Council have included NSP105 as a potential proposal site. At this stage the Council has not proposed any uses, but are simply identifying the land as a potential site for redevelopment

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Trinty and Tabard Addendum, January 2014.

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Bankside, Borough & London Bridge Characterisation Study -TRINITY AND TABARD ADDENDUM, JANUARY 2014

Interestingly, this document includes part of Tabard Gardens Estate as part of a potential conservation area/extension, but ONLY includes Becket House from Tabard North.

TRINITY AND TABARD ADDENDUM, JANUARY 2014

Potential conservation area/extension on Tabard.

Download: TRINITY AND TABARD ADDENDUM, JANUARY 2014

Joint Security Initiative (JSI) programme 2015-2016

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Dear all,

Joint Security Initiative (JSI) programme 2015-2016

The Southwark Council Joint Security Initiative (JSI) 2015-2016 programme is now open for application. The broad aims of this programme are:

· To contribute to Housing & Community Services’ delivery of the strategic objectives in the Council Plan

· Input to the crime and disorder strategy by reducing issues that affect people the most, linked to the fear of crime and wellbeing.

· Involve residents in solution solving partnerships to tackle local problems.

· Reduce barriers to involvement

· Promote inclusive and cohesive communities

You are eligible to apply if you are:

· Tenants and residents associations

· Tenant management organisations

· Area housing forums

· Service provider working with the above groups

Potential applicants are encouraged to attend the JSI workshop scheduled for Thursday 19th February 2015. Judging by the standard of applications submitted to the programme last year, the applications submitted by applicants who attended the workshop were generally of good standard. The programme for the workshop is in the application pack.

The deadline for submission of completed application is Monday 16th March 2015 at 5pm. Please note that late applications will not be considered.

Triumphant Oghre
Commissioning Officer
Southwark Council
Housing & Community Services
Community Engagement
2nd Floor, Hub 4
160 Tooley Street
London
SE1P 5LX

Tel.: 0207 525 7418

Bankside, Borough & London Bridge Characterisation Study July 2013

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“2.9 Opportunity sites
The characterisation study has identified that there are a number of large opportunity sites in the BBLB OA (Fig.13). These include sites which have consented planning applications, some of which are moving towards construction, such as large sites of London Bridge Station, One Tower Bridge, Tate Modern extension and other consented proposals at the north end of Blackfriars Road. Other sites are identified as having potential for more intense development or efficient use of land, examples being large blocks covering a site, areas of car parking or light industrial uses or
storage sheds. Some of the larger sites can also offer potential for public realm improvements including the creation of new links to enhance permeability or new public space.”

BLBB_Characterisation_Study_Final_Report_July_2013_LR

BLB detail

potential for more intense development…areas of car parking

BLB opportunity areas

Potential for more intense development.

 

Email from BVAG: Neighbourhood Plan update – Lawyers instructed & Council Meeting

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Neighbourhood Plan update – Lawyers instructed & Council Meeting
(11 February 6.00pm, Council Offices, Tooley St)

The Council’s resistance to our Neighbourhood planning initiative has entered another desperate phase.

In August they finally recognised that avoidance and delay was becoming unsustainable and designated a neighbourhood area (‘NA’) that does not correspond with our application area – or with anyone else’s.

A challenge to that decision by way of a ‘call-in’ by the (very) minority Lib-Dems then triggered a referral to the so-called Oversight and Scrutiny Committee, occasioning a further convenient two months of delay. The OSC is a kangaroo court whipped by the majority Labour Party members into an obedient ratification of Council decisions and its members dutifully did what they were told on 20 October.

In response we called a joint meeting of the BVAG-coordinated St Thomas St Plan and the phantom rival applicant ‘group’ that the Council has sought to promote: ‘Bermondsey Neighbourhood Forum’ (‘BNF’). In reality BNF had stopped holding meetings well over a year ago and its membership had all but evaporated. The few remaining members who turned up duly resolved to formally wind up what was by now nothing more than a straw man for the Council to use as a pretext for refusing to process the only valid application for Neighbourhood Forum Status, namely ours.

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Council designated Area ‘A’

In order to remove any further opportunity for delay by the Council the meeting also, with reservations over its size and suitability reluctantly agreed to amend the STP to adopt the Council’s own designated area (‘Area A’, see below). The amended plan was given the working title of STP(D) and the Council was invited to finally approve our application. Given that they themselves had designated the NA selected and they had only one application from what in their own August report was acknowledged to be a qualifying group they were running out of wriggle-room. Without any plausible excuses remaining to them they have resorted to exactly what we anticipated at the meeting – further delay and a few half-hearted implausible excuses (See correspondence here). At the November meeting we had anticipated exactly what we got and we had also resolved to instruct lawyers to prepare for a Judicial Review of the Council’s refusal to process our application. Consequently leading Counsel’s advice was obtained in December. Together with his Junior, the barristers are now preparing the protocol letter before action required to commence a JR claim.