Back in November, I gave a plug to the Memories of St Winifred’s book that’s been published by former staff and pupils at the two St Winifred’s schools in Lee Green.

The editorial team tell me that responses have been healthy and the book is selling well.  However, there are still some copies left.  If you’d like to get your hands on one, email roseanngibbs {at} onetel(.)com

Just a quick note to say that I understand that the revised design for the stained glass window at Northbrook School was APPROVED by Planning Committee A at their meeting on Thursday night. Papers available here.

Yesterday Pete and I took the Hither Green Access for All petition to the Department for Transport.  Here’s Pete explaining more (you can credit me for the steady camera work..!)

Access for All Campaign Ramps Up! from Pete Pattisson on Vimeo.

Manor House Library staff are to host a great opportunity to regularly meet other Spanish speakers and to celebrate Latin America.

Should Spanish be your second language, this is also a chance to socialise and hone your language skills. The group will watch a movie or have a chat about a short-story by a Latin American author. Copies of the short stories will be provided in advance.

These are free evenings and will be held fortnightly on Thursdays, between 5 and 7 pm. The first session will be on Thurday 15th April.

More info on 020 8852 0357

Nearly two years after it was first introduced, and after demands from the Local Assembly, the Labour-run Council has finally got round to reviewing the Hither Green East CPZ.

Surveys like the one on the right should have reached households in the area over the last couple of weeks.  Please return it to the FREEPOST address within three weeks of receiving it.

I was really pleased to see that Car Clubs are given a strong plug in the survey document. If you’re new to car clubs, they’re basically a self-service pay-as-you-go hire car you can use for as little as an hour at a time.  More info here. We  now have three cars in the ward – provided by Streetcar – on Manor Park (junction with Lee High Road), Fernbrook Road, and Holme Lacey Road.  Clearly if we can get more Streetcars in the ward, then sharing a car club car becomes a more viable proposition and more people will feel able to give up their car (or even just their second car!).

I was less pleased to see that in the 20 different questions the Council asks residents about their CPZ, not one concerns the hours of operation, despite this being a major bone of contention locally – and one the Mayor and his officers are well aware of from the Assembly’s work and complaints from myself and my colleagues.  I would therefore encourage residents who’ve received a questionnaire to use the ‘Any other comments?’ section to make any points they wish to about the hours of operation of the zone.   Controlled parking might be lucrative for the Mayor (£1.3million a year last time I asked) but that’s no excuse not to listen to residents’ genuine concerns about the overkill of 9am to 7pm CPZs.

The sorry saga of the Crown Estate’s plans to sell off their homes in Lee Green and elsewhere in London rumbles on.

Using Freedom of Information requests, residents have discovered that plans to sell off their homes were being discussed a year before the Crown Estate launched their ‘consultation’.  The South London Press covered this on Friday.

On Saturday, I attended the residents’ protest outside the Crown Estate’s ‘drop in’ consultation at the Colfeian Sports Club.  It was good to see a huge turnout from residents, and also cross-party political support for their campaign against the sell off of their homes.  As I said on Saturday, this campaign isn’t party political, it’s about what’s right and wrong.

I’d encourage residents of the affected properties, and indeed those who live around them and are concerned by the proposals, to visit the www.ourhomesarenotforsale.co.uk website and use the suggestions there to make sure the Crown knows the strength of feeling locally.