A message from Gerri Scott

Posted by

0

Dear TRA Chair

I wanted to let you know that after 7 years of leading the Housing department and the modernisation agenda for Southwark Council, I have decided to completely change my career path and have announced that I will be leaving the council at the end of the year.  I am incredibly proud of the progress we have made in Southwark, improving the quality of our council homes by making them warm, safe and dry, installing new kitchens and bathrooms, and bringing our contact centre back in-house. We have also vastly improved the housing management service, so we are more responsive to our residents.

I am pleased that I will be here to get a long-term plan in place for the residents of the Ledbury estate before I leave and to carry on leading the department whilst arrangements are made for my replacement.

My decision to leave was not an easy one, as I have thoroughly enjoyed working for what I believe is the very best council in London, with fantastic residents, colleagues, councillors,  and partners but I have ambitions beyond local government that I would like to fulfil, including a long held dream of setting up my own creative business.   After nearly 30 years in public service, it’s time to get back to my creative roots.  However, I will always have a passion for what we do and hope to use my skills and experience in other ways.

This has been the most challenging job in my career but also the most satisfying, not least because of the amazing people I have had the pleasure to work with.

With very best wishes

Gerri Scott

Strategic Director Housing & Modernisation

160 Tooley Street

London SE1 2TZ

‘A Plastic Ocean’ film screening – 7th September

Posted by

0

Veolia Southwark is once again supporting the Peckham & Nunhead Free Film Festival. This year, you are invited to special screening of A Plastic Ocean.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A from Louisa Casson, a campaigner for ending plastics in oceans at Greenpeace.


A Plastic Ocean is a new feature-length adventure documentary that brings to light the consequences of our global disposable lifestyle. In A Plastic Ocean, an international team of adventurers, researchers, and ocean ambassadors go on a mission around the globe to uncover the shocking truth about what is truly lurking beneath the surface of our seemingly pristine ocean. During its four-year production period, A Plastic Ocean was filmed in 20 locations around the world in beautiful and chilling detail to document the global effects of plastic pollution and introduce workable technology and policy solutions that can, if implemented in time, change things for the better.

Date: Thursday 7 September

Time: 8.00pm (doors open at 7.30pm; arrive early to avoid disappointment)
Tickets: FREE
Address: Southwark Integrated Waste Management Facility, 43 Devon Street, London, SE15 1AL
Refreshments: A pop-up bar will be available on the night


Click here to watch the trailer.

We look forward to welcoming you.

Veolia Southwark

t: +44 (0)20 3567 2600
Southwark Integrated Waste Management Facility, 43 Devon Street, London, SE15 1AL

BSAP: Tell us what you like best about our area

Posted by

0

Hello

It’s Clare from the Bermondsey Street Area Partnership, here again. I was last in touch a few months ago about our Then and Now Photo Competition leading to an exhibition in Bermondsey Village Hall in June. It was a happy event, with some very happy winners and helped remind us about the strengths of community after the terrible events at London Bridge and Borough Market. Many thanks for your help in making people aware of the competition.

We’re still on the same track, wanting to find out what people feel contributes to the character of our area so that we can protect those things in the Neighbourhood Plan and celebrate them. The things people like most could be street furniture or trees, open spaces or views, public art or buildings, anything. With some Community Council funding and working with Team London Bridge and STAMP (Shad Thames), we’ve set up a website with a map of our area where anyone can click on the map and leave a comment, the more comments the better.

If it’s possible for you to publicise this in your area, that would be amazing, thank you. There is a jpeg of the leaflet below and I’ve left a stack of paper copies at the JMB offices. If you would like some leaflets I can deliver them to you this weekend. If you’d like me to come and talk at a meeting in September, I’ll happily do that, just let me know.

Look forward to hearing from you

All best

Clare

Clare Birks

Chair, Bermondsey Street Area Partnershipbsapunnamed

OBVNF Meeting 19 July: NSP53

Posted by

0
 Forum Meeting6.30pm Wednesday 19 July

 Globe House | Corner of Bermondsey Street & Crucifix Lane  

High-rise -v- Heritage
in Bermondsey St/St Thomas St

bvjul1

bvjul2

For the past few weeks at our information point in Globe House we have informed and consulted widely on the Council’s plans for St Thomas St/Bermondsey St.  Unsurprisingly, their high-rise plans are no more popular now than they were when Sellar came up with his original version – the three Shard satellites – in 2010.

Following the consultation the Forum now needs to consider our next steps towards protecting this area from insensitive development.  We have invited the Council to send a representative to the meeting who can explain with some greater accuracy than the hopelessly vague NSP 53 wording, what they are seeking to promote.  Presently they can’t even explain how they worked out the ‘site’ area,  particularly whether it includes demolition of the Vinegar Yard warehouse to make way for high-rise and whether it includes wiping Vinegar Yard itself and the eastern end of Snowsfields off the map as public roads. Network Rail, who own the former St Thomas St car park, and James Sellar, who owns the vinegar warehouse and 40-44 Bermondsey St, have also been invited to attend.

Important on the agenda will be the launch of our planned local list of buildings to be protected and the broader concept of places that go beyond individual buildings and which should be extended a more generalised form of protection.  The ‘placemarks’ initiative, led by BSAP, is currently underway and our subscribers are invited to go to the website and nominate any places of their own for inclusion: www.bermondseyplaces.uk.
.
A provisional list of local buildings of significance to the area’s character will be presented at the meeting, specifically in the St Thomas St/ Snowsfields/north Bermondsey St area.  Further nominations will be welcome and we will be aiming to extend the area of coverage in the coming weeks to the whole of the OBF area – and the original area from which the Council excluded the Forum.

At the meeting we will be considering the preservation of the Vinegar Yard warehouse in the context both of local listing and potentially its designation as an Asset of Community Value [‘ACV’] (a designation established under the Localism Act).  We have written to Simon Bevan, Head of Planning, asking him if he knows of any reason why it cannot be designated as an ACV.  One of the implications of such a designation is that there would arise a community right to buy the building in the event that it is sold by the present owner. If Sellar’s high-rise ambitions do not come to fruition such a sale is likely.

All welcome.