 Covid-19: what you need to knowCovid-19 numbers are rising rapidly in Southwark and across London. Sadly, the number of hospital admissions and deaths is also rising. It’s as important as ever that we all do everything we can to reduce the spread of the virus. Self-isolate and get tested if you have symptomsIf you have coronavirus symptoms you must self-isolate and get a free test.You are now legally required to self-isolate, if you’ve tested positive or been told to by the test and trace service. People who don’t self-isolate when required could now be fined. Keep washing your hands, social distancing and wear a face coveringIn addition to the new rules we must keep washing our hands regularly, keep our distance from others (and not meet with more than six people), and wear a face covering in shops and on transport.Businesses must display a contact tracing posterBusinesses and some other organisations must download and display a QR code poster for customers and visitors to support contract tracing.Download the Test and Trace appYou can now download the national test and trace app. The app has a number of features including alerting users if they have been near other app users who have tested positive for coronavirus. Find out more about the app.Most children are now back in schoolMost children in Southwark are now back at school and we want to say a big thank you to our schools, teachers and families who for working together to keep everyone safe. Where there have been some Covid-19 cases in schools, the bubble arrangements have worked well, and although we know having to isolate can be inconvenient for families, we are hugely grateful to everyone in helping to keep Southwark safe and stop the spread of Covid-19.Other updatesCheck out what’s on for Black History MonthThere’s a variety of online and Covid-secure offline activities happening for Black History Month.Hear four poems by award-winning poet Jenny Mitchell from her lost language collectionJoin borough archivist Dr Patricia Dark, in an exploration of the history of Southwark’s pre-Windrush Black community on 13 October (in a virtual event on Zoom)Celebrate Black history and submit a digital image for our Southwark Stands Together digital patchwork quiltSee all our Black History Month listings.Have your say on our prioritiesWe’ve drafted an updated council plan which sets out our priorities until May 2022. Have we got our priorities right? Give your views on our draft council plan by 20 October.Get your free flu jabIf you’re eligible, make sure you get your free flu vaccination to protect yourself and those around you from the flu virus. It’s more important than ever this year. Ask your pharmacist or GP today.Get help to quit smokingIf you’re trying to stop smoking this October, you can get free online and telephone support to help you quit smoking for good.Have you seen the giant mural on Old Kent Road?Proposition Studios at Surrey Wharf is transforming a corner of Old Kent Road with an amazing, temporary work of art, ahead of redevelopment.Could you foster a child?If you have a spare room and have a flexible job, and if you’re energetic and a good listener, you could consider becoming a foster carer. Give your views on Victory ParkGive your views on three designs for Victory Park, near the Elephant and Castle. If you’d like play areas, an outdoor gym, table tennis, picnic benches and more, complete our survey by 23 October.An update on the Bakerloo Line extensionSouthwark and Lewisham councils remain fully committed to the Bakerloo Line extension, following TfL’s announcement regarding funding. Read the joint statement.Housing updates:Work with us on our Great Estates programmeGreat Estates is about celebrating our council estates, encouraging integration, making them clean, safe and cared for, and a great place to live. Let us know your views on our commitments and the ones we’d like you to make at by 18 October.Nominate yourself to become your local housing forum chairIf you live in a council home you can nominate yourself to be chair of your local housing forum. This will help make sure meetings are relevant and shaped by residents. Experience in chairing meetings is not necessary as training and support will be given. Nominate yourself to represent your housing forum in the tenants’ or homeowners’ forum You can now also nominate yourself to represent your local forum at the new tenants’ or homeowners’ forum. This might be for you, if you are able to commit to attend about nine evening meetings a year. You don’t need to have previous experience as we will offer free training and support. |
Advice & Information
VAWG (violence against women and girls Consultation
The Safer Communities Team is seeking the views and experiences of service users/survivors of all forms of VAWG (violence against women and girls). This will help them shape future services from April 2022.
As part of this process, an online survey is now live on the consultation hub via the following link:
https://consultations.southwark.gov.uk/environment-leisure/violence-against-women-and-girls-services
I ask that you complete if you can. The closing date is Monday 5 October, 20.
Judy Wills
Empowering Communities Programme Officer
North West Area (Borough & Bankside, Chaucer, London Bridge & West Bermondsey and St George’s)
Communities Division| Environment & Leisure Department
160 Tooley Street, London, SE1 2QH
Black History Month 2020
In Southwark, Black History Month has been celebrated for over 25 years with a programme of inspirational events and workshops throughout October. Every year schools, libraries, groups and organisations host events, many of which are funded by our grants programme.
The theme for this year is Celebrating Black Voices, Celebrating Black History.
This year all BHM event details will be uploaded directly to the council’s Southwark Presents listings website.
There will be no printed or downloadable PDF brochures.
Centre closes, but campaign continues
| Dear Friend Many thanks to all of you who joined us on our great protest to mark the closure of the Elephant and Castle shopping centre last Thursday. The large crowd marched round the shopping centre and heard impassioned and heart-felt speeches from Latin Elephant’s Patria Roman and shopping centre trader Emad Megahed, both mainstays of the Up the Elephant campaign. The protest and closure drew widespread media coverage, with articles in the SE1 website, Southwark News, South London Press, South West Londoner, Morning Star, The Guardian (and an opinion piece), the Justice Gap, Vice and the Spanish language Express News UK (and here) and the BBC’s Drivetime with Eddie Nestor. See More photos of the protest here  Thank’s to Emile for photo What next….. While the centre has closed the campaign in support of the traders continues. The day before the centre’s closure Mayor Sadiq Khan responded to the traders proposal to the Mayor for new market stalls at the Elephant to accommodate traders who have not been allocated new premises. The Mayor has said ‘It is disappointing that a number of small businesses still don’t have the certainty they need….in general I would welcome any workable solution that would provide these businesses with the space they need to trade’. The traders’ proposal is supported by Florence Eshalomi MP, London Assembly member for Lambeth and Southwark, local councillor Maria Linforth Hall and London Assembly members Caroline Pidgeon and Sian Berry, the Green Party candidate for Mayor. The Camberwell and Peckham Constituency Labour Party also passed a motion in support of the traders’ Proposal at their meeting last week. The traders and their supporters will now be building on this support to get new market stalls and kiosks for those traders without new premise and repair some of the damage done to their businesses and livelihoods, by the centre closure. You can read more here. Regards Jerry Copyright © 2020 Elephant Amenity Network, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Elephant Amenity Network 18 Market Place Blue Anchor Lane London, Southwark SE16 3UQ United Kingdom |
message from Cllr Kieron Williams, the new Leader of Southwark Council
 Dear residentIt is an honour to be elected as Leader of Southwark Council. As Leader, I want to work with everyone in Southwark to keep building a better future and unlocking the amazing potential I see in every part of our community. Never has that potential been clearer than during this pandemic. Seeing volunteers, frontline workers, public services, charities, faith groups and businesses all step up together has been truly inspiring. I want to thank you all for the part you have played. Your actions have shown incredible strength and resilience. Sadly the pandemic is far from over and our continued response to COVID-19 remains our top priority. Cases and hospital admissions are rising across London and much of the UK. If action isn’t taken quickly, we risk seeing another dramatic rise in hospitalizations and, tragically, deaths. I welcome the additional restrictions that have been introduced this week – further information about these is below – and I have joined the Mayor of London in calling for further targeted restrictions in London to help keep us all safe.Although COVID-19 is the most pressing and urgent issue we face, it is not our only challenge. The unequal impact of the pandemic on different communities has shone a light on wider inequalities and injustice in our society. My ambition as Leader is to unite communities in Southwark so we can break down that inequality, and not just rebuild from the crisis, but build something better. A Southwark where everyone has a home, where everyone can get a decent job, where we end our carbon emissions and where everyone is empowered to make the best of their life. I look forward to working with you to continue to build a better future for the people of Southwark. Thank you and stay safe. Kieron Update on new Covid-19 rules This week the government announced a tightening of Covid restrictions in a number of areas and also launched its new Test and Trace app. Self-isolating is a legal requirement from 28 September From 28 September you are legally required to self-isolate, if you’ve tested positive or been told to by the test and trace service. People who don’t self-isolate when required could now be fined. If you need to self-isolate and you’re on a low income and can’t work from home, you may be eligible for £500 hardship payment. We are waiting for further details from the government about how this will work. New rules for pubs, restaurants and shops Some businesses need to follow updated rules where appropriate. This includes shop staff wearing face coverings, and pubs and restaurants closing by 10pm and implementing table service only. Businesses must display a contact tracing poster Businesses and some other organisations must download and display a QR code poster for customers and visitors to support contract tracing. Download the Test and Trace app You can now download the national test and trace app. The app has a number of features including alerting users if they have been near other app users who have tested positive for coronavirus. Find out more about the app. Changes for indoor sports and weddings Indoor team sports can now only be played by a maximum of six people. Weddings can now only have a maximum of 15 guests. Keep washing your hands, social distancing and wear a face covering In addition to the new rules we must keep washing our hands regularly, keep our distance from others (and not meet with more than six people), and wear a face covering in shops and on transport. Self-isolate and get tested if you have symptoms If you have coronavirus symptoms you must self-isolate and get a free test. |
35% Campaign update – The Elephant traders who face the end without new homes
| Latest blog update on regeneration in Southwark The Elephant traders who face the end without new homes Sep 22, 2020 12:00 am Only 40 traders ‘found new premises’ as centre closure looms -Shopping centre developer Delancey and Southwark Council have mounted a desperate defence of their failed trader’ relocation strategy, with a joint statement claiming that all qualifying businesses have been relocated or offered relocation options ‘without question’. The centre is due to close on Thursday. The very same joint statement reveals, however, that only 40 traders have actually been found new premises through the relocation process, a fraction of the approximately 130 independent businesses identified in January 2018 by Southwark, as operating at the Elephant 1. Much of the rest of the joint statement is a lengthy account of how this much larger figure has been was reduced to just forty traders through the relocation process. The statement also outlines ‘options’ available to the unfortunate traders who have nowhere to go and makes self-justifying excuses for this miserable outcome.  The joint statement also attacks what it calls ‘uncorroborated statistics’, which show that at least 40 traders will have nowhere to go when the centre closes, and online ‘misinformation’. This is clearly aimed at the Up the Elephant campaign, including the 35% Campaign and, in particular, Latin Elephant, who have worked tirelessly to support the traders. Latin Elephant has issued its own rebuttal, noting that Delancey and Southwark have now themselves admitted in the joint statement that only 40 traders have been found new premises, ‘leaving about 40 traders who have been trading at least since January 2019 (as per the s106 agreement) without alternative premises’. Latin Elephant’s rebuttal also includes links to all the supporting research evidence on the fate of traders, through the regeneration process. This research names the independent businesses, maps their location and gives relevant dates. Who gets to be eligible? As Latin Elephant explains, while 130 independent businesses were recognised by Southwark as operating within the red-line of the development in January 2018 (the date of the first hearing for the shopping centre planning application), Delancey and Southwark take only 79 ‘eligible’ businesses as the base-line in their account of the relocation process, excluding many long-standing businesses. Delancey and Southwark then whittle the 79 ‘eligible’ businesses down to forty businesses, in successive stages– 64 applications received, 61 valid, 40 found new premises. (Southwark has acknowledged on its website that there are 33 eligible traders remaining without a relocation offer, but that is not mentioned in the joint statement). The ‘options’ for those not awarded premises are to search for somewhere else themselves, through a commercial premises database. If they do not find anywhere, they will receive payments of around £8000. The inadequacy of these ‘options’ hardly needs stating. The database has been a constant source of frustration to traders, who have criticised it for being out of date and listing premises that are simply too expensive and too far away. An £8000 payment is also very little compensation for the loss of a livelihood, built up over many years and a long way short of what is needed to re-establish a business; one of our previous blogposts has the stories of traders of up to 20 years standing who are in this situation.  No commitments Delancey and Southwark’s joint statement also takes pains to say that there was never a commitment to relocate all the traders. This is shamefully true – it is to Southwark’s great discredit that it ignored evidence from Latin Elephant that this situation was bound to arise, because there was only half the space required for a proper trader relocation in Delancey’s redevelopment plans, but Southwark went ahead and approved the plans nonetheless. Notwithstanding the lack of a formal commitment, Southwark still created the impression that all traders would be accommodated; when asked directly by councillors at the planning meeting for Castle Sq, one of the relocation sites, whether ‘given all of the different site…does that cover…enough sites for all of the current number of traders…..How many short would we be roughly?’ council officers replied ‘…across the piste there should be sufficient’. By their own testimonies traders also confirm that they have been strung along with false hopes of relocation space throughout the relocation process. Stall-holders do it for themselves Faced with the loss of their businesses the market stallholders who occupy the ‘moat’ that surrounds the shopping centre have banded together to draft a Proposal for more market stalls at the Elephant, after the centre’s closure. The Proposal was received by Florence Eshalomi, London Assembly member for Lambeth and Southwark, who met the traders at City Hall, gave strong support and undertook to take up the matter with Mayor Sadiq Khan. Local councillor Cllr Maria Linforth-Hall also met the traders and is giving her support, as are Assembly members Caroline Pidgeon and Sian Berry, Assembly Member and the Green Party candidate for Mayor.  The Camberwell and Peckham Labour Party Constituency Party also passed a motion in support of the traders’ Proposal at their meeting last week. …while UAL looks after itself Sadly, the University of the Arts London (UAL) has not felt able to help the traders, nearly all of whom come from black and ethnic minority backgrounds and despite its professed commitment to Black Lives Matter. In letters received by Southwark Law Centre UAL declines to either withdraw from the shopping centre redevelopment which will supply it with a new campus for the London College of Communication on the very spot traders now occupy, nor to offer support for the traders’ Proposals for additional market stalls. UAL is instead happy to take Southwark and Delancey’s assurances that all traders are being properly treated at face value. Division and attrition Southwark and Delancey’s treatment of the people who actually work at the Elephant now can be summed up as ‘division and attrition’. The relocation strategy and traders’ participation in decisions on their future were only put in place after Delancey had gained planning committee approval for their scheme. Latin Elephant’s advocacy on behalf of all the BAME traders was also resisted. The s106 legal agreement (negotiated between Southwark, Delancey and UAL), which determines who was ‘eligible’ and who was ineligible for relocation support uses formal criteria around leases and licences that do not reflect the way the community has developed over the years. Alongside this, the decline in footfall and in the physical fabric of the centre led to a decline in trade that unsurprisingly meant that traders left before the centre’s closure, wearied beyond hope by the whole ‘regeneration’ process. For Southwark and Delancey this is all part of the natural process of regeneration and relocating just 40 out of 130 traders is a triumph to be proud of. For the traders and the campaigners who support them it is deplorable outcome which exposes the hollow promise that the Elephant and Castle regeneration is providing a ‘fairer future’ for the local community.  Southwark Council’s Planning Framework for E&C regeneration.Going, but not forgotten… You can see a short valedictory film, by Emile Scott Burgoyne, celebrating the Elephant community here. See joint statement, heading ‘Who is being relocated?’, first bullet point. ↩ Read in browser » Recent Articles: Shopping Centre traders propose new stalls for the Elephant Southwark responds to shopping centre campaigners The shopping centre traders expelled by regeneration Campaigners demand that UAL withdraws from shopping centre development. follow on Twitter | friend on Facebook | forward to a friend 35% Campaign |
Update: Covid-19 cases are increasing in Southwark, and a farewell message from Cllr Peter John
35% Campaign update – Shopping Centre traders propose new stalls for the Elephant
| Sep 14, 2020 12:00 am Traders appeal to Mayor Sadiq Khan for his support -Traders who will be losing their market stalls when the Elephant and Castle shopping closes have come up with their own proposal for new stalls at the Elephant. Around forty traders face the loss of their businesses and livelihoods when the Centre closes its doors for the last time on 24 September.The traders’ proposals are for new stalls to be sited around the Faraday Memorial, by the railway arches along Archer St and outside the new Elephant Arcade, at the bottom of Perronet House. Traders are proposing at least 45 new stalls. Most of the new stalls would be around the large silver Faraday Memorial in the middle of the Elephant roundabout. This will become an even more important commuter route between the train station and the tube stations, with the closure of the shopping centre. The proposal would keep established traders at the heart of the Elephant and maintain the ‘sense of place’ that they have created. The proposal builds upon a previous Transport for London (TfL) project, from 2014, but never delivered.The proposal has been sent to the Mayor of London for his support. The land around the Faraday memorial is owned by TfL, which the Mayor leads.Local London Assembly member Florence Eshalomi MP has submitted a formal question to the Mayor asking him if he will support the proposals.Traders are also looking for support from local councillors from all parties and representatives at the London Assembly.Traders believe that with wholehearted support from the Mayor, Southwark Council, councillors and London Assembly members, all the displaced traders from the shopping centre can be found new homes. Only 45 out of 97 traders had secured relocation space, up to the end of April 2020.The proposal was devised by Alice Chilangwa Farmer and is supported by the Up the Elephant Campaign, Latin Elephant and Southwark Law Centre. If adopted it would provide shopping options and continuity to a local community facing a prolonged period of disruption and construction work.The complete proposal can be found here. This is what the traders and supporters have to say;Trader Shapoor Amini says: ‘ I’ve worked at this market since 2001. These people promised us so many things, they said we’ll give you a space, we’ll look after you guys, but they’ve done nothing for us. …I applied so many times—I’ve made calls, been to the council, been to the office, done lots of paperwork […] been to countless meetings, and still nothing. My whole life has been spent in this market, in this area, and now I don’t know what to do…..I have a kids, a wife it is very difficult’.Trader Edmund Attoh says: ‘I’m working here over 20 years. Things are very difficult people who have been here for a long time didn’t get nothing. That’s what we don’t understand, that’s why we are frustrated. We don’t know where we are going now. I applied for a space, and anything they asked, we give to them. They turned us down. But they didn’t say [why].’Traders Mathew and Eden Onuba say: ‘We’ve been 5 years at Elephant and Castle. We don’t know what to do in September, it is a very difficult situation. I don’t want much, but to save the business we’ve built up together.’Read in browser » Recent Articles:Southwark responds to shopping centre campaigners The shopping centre traders expelled by regeneration Campaigners demand that UAL withdraws from shopping centre development. Aylesbury estate regeneration to have new council homesfollow on Twitter | friend on Facebook | forward to a friend 35% Campaign |
RJ4All’s Mayflower Youth Awards
FixMyBlock for Tower Block tenants.
Tabard Gardens North T&RA 