Yesterday morning I was at the Town Hall bright and early for a special meeting of the Mayor and Cabinet, called to discuss the statement of community views we passed at the February meeting of the Lee Green Assembly  . We used the (little known) power of the local assembly to place an item on the agenda of Mayor & Cabinet.

The statement reads as follows:

The Lee Green Assembly notes:
• The update we received from Lewisham Council’s Head of Transport at our meeting in September 2008
• The consultation which has taken place on extension of the Hither Green East CPZ and the Old Road/Bankwell CPZ
• The on-going parking problems in our community, which spread to a new area each time a CPZ is implemented

The Lee Green Assembly believes:
• That we need a ward-wide approach to parking, not piecemeal CPZ extensions each time a problem arises
• That there are alternatives to Lewisham Council’s ‘one-size-fits-all’ CPZ model, including CPZs with reduced and different hours of operation, homezones, and increased provision of car clubs, amongst other options
• That our community facilities such as shops, schools and businesses have parking needs that must be taken into account

The Lee Green Assembly therefore calls for:
• A review of parking across the ward, working with residents to reach acceptable solutions for each area of the ward
• The parking needs of the whole community, including the facilities mentioned above, to be taken into account in this review.

I explained the background to the Mayor and his cabinet – we’ve discussed this at three meetings of the Lee Green Assembly – all of which were well attended. The statement is based on a consensus we reached last September, and was passed in February with no votes against, and a handful of abstentions.

The Mayor and his cabinet briefly discussed this and asked me some questions, and the Mayor has now asked council officers to bring him a report detailing how this could be achieved and what the potential costs are. He’ll then consider that and decide whether to proceed – probably at a meeting in July.

I’ve consistently said that one of the key tests for the Local Assemblies programme is the extent to which the Council can make mainstream services and budgets respond to the assemblies.  It’s all very well giving us £50,000 to spend locally (which is welcome) but the big prize are the millions of pounds spent on other services locally.  IF – and it’s a big if – the assemblies can influence that, then we’ll know the Council’s serious about local involvement.

As always, I’m interested in your views

I’ve  spent the last two evenings stuck in the Town Hall, so thought I’d explain what I’ve been up to.

On Wednesday, I attended a meeting of Mayor and Cabinet. I don’t make a habit of going to these, but there were three things I was interested in on the agenda.

Firstly, the Mayor was (finally!) agreeing the rent increase for 2009/10. This was delayed as the Government announced – very late in the day – some extra money for rents. This has caused chaos as Lewisham had already announced the rent rise, and so has had to freeze rents til July while they work out what to do. The Government has also managed to exclude thousands of tenants across the borough, who won’t benefit from this cash at all. Not their finest hour. Anyway, the final increase is 3.84% and should come in from July 6th.

Secondly, the Mayor agreed the waste strategy, which (amongst other things) will see a garden waste drop-off point set up during weekends, probably in the Blackheath Station Car Park. A bit nearer than the Landmann Way site for people in Lee Green, but still no good if you haven’t got a car (can’t see many people pushing a wheelbarrow that far!).

Thirdly, the Mayor rubber-stamped the £5,000 the local assembly allocated for community consultation and activities at the Leegate Centre. Excellent news.

After work on Thursday, I met with the Executive Director for Customer Services to discuss various housing issues. The good news is, the Lee stock transfer is still on-track for approval in June/July – can’t come a moment too soon for me or the residents on the stock transfer estates.

Then I was off to housing committee, which was considering the draft homelessness prevention strategy. I was pleased to get the document amended so that councillors will get regular reports on how the strategy’s progressing. It’s one thing having a good strategy (which I think we now have) but it’s another thing making sure it’s implemented.

Once housing committee concluded, I was straight into the Sustainable Development Committee, where they were already half way through taking evidence from Sutton, Islington and Greenwich Councils on home insulation. Always good to hear what some Lib Dem-run councils are up to – and Islington and Sutton do seem to be setting the pace. After that we discussed the new parks management contract (currently held by Glendale). This gave me a chance to put in another plea for a park keeper for Manor Park. I was also pleased to learn that some of the investment cash for this contract will be targeted at smaller parks – so there’s a chance we could get some improvements to the little-known Edith Nesbitt Gardens, Lee Green’s third park.

Thankfully the weekend’s a bit more Lee Green focussed – I’ve got my monthly advice surgery at Leybridge Court, and am planning to drop into the Lee Manor Society Plant Mart and the St. Margaret’s Victorian Fair. Late on, I’m attending a meeting with residents regarding 87 Old Road, and then I’m sitting back to watch Eurovision.

Lewisham Council’s transport liaison committee is next meeting on June 9th.  Entertainingly chaired by Labour’s John Muldoon, the meeting gives us a chance to put questions to TfL, Network Rail and bus/rail operators.

If anyone has any suggestions for public transport-related questions, do let me have them (either using the comments section or via email) by Monday 18th May.

Thanks to all those who came along to last night’s local assembly at Lee Manor School.   Another good turn out – perhaps slightly down on last time, but still 80 or 90 people in the room, I’d guess.

For those of you who didn’t make it, the key announcements and decisions were:

• We agreed to allocated £20,000 towards improvements in Manor Park.  The assembly coordinating group presented the assembly with a ‘shopping list’ of items which we’d like to follow up, and the assembly agreed to a £20,000 budget.  The coordinating group will now negotiate with council staff and report back to the next assembly on what we can get for our money
• We allocated a further £20,000 to establish a Lee Green Youth Club, initially to operate twice a week from hired premises (to be identified) but to become a sustainble youth club with a management committee composed of young people, the youth service and members of the community.  This is seriously good news, in my opinion!   If anyone’s interested in getting involved, do let me know.
• I explained that the parking ‘motion’ we passed at the February assembly will be going to the Mayor for consideration on 27th May
• There was a brief update on the Leegate priority, and another appeal for people to join the friends of Leegate.
• Antonio from the library service gave a presentation on the refurbishment of the Manor House, and avoided giving anything away by restricting himself to one photo of the exterior!

All in all a good night.  For those of you who were there:

• This is the report on dog control orders that explains what they mean and where they operate
• There was some opposition to the recent increase in parking permit charges.  As I explained, this decision was taken by the Mayor some time ago, but has only just kicked in locally as permits in Hither Green East become due for renewal.  You can read the report the Mayor approved here.

Next assembly is on July 4th.  If you’d like more details about any of the above, give me a shout.

Regular users of Hither Green Station will no doubt have noticed that as well as the ramp we use every day that emerges between platforms 4 & 5, there are also blocked up ramps leading directly to platforms 1, 2/3 and 6.    Before Christmas, I was asked why these ramps couldn’t be reopened to allow for easier access to the station for those with pushchairs, bikes, etc.  

I asked this question at the transport liasion meeting we had with Southeastern just before Christmas, and was told they’d look into it.   Then the same issue came up at the Sustainable Development Select Committee (which I’m vice chair of) – turns out other councillors felt the same.   So we referred the issue to Mayor and Cabinet, recommending that they take it up with Southeastern (the thought being that an official approach from the Mayor on behalf of the whole council would have more weight than me asking questions at a liasion meeting!)

I’m really pleased the Mayor’s accepted our recommendation - now we’ve just got to wait to hear what Southeastern think.

The referral’s been picked up over at the (excellent) Hither Green Forum.   As I’ve said over there, we’d need to make sure the ramps were safe and properly lit etc, but it’d make access much easier.  Even for those on foot, there are times at the evening peak when there’s a real crush to get over from platform 6 to the current exit.  Now seems like a good time to take this up – before Oyster Pay as You Go comes to Southeastern (latest date I have is ‘early next year’).

Would be interested to hear others’ views…

The Council met last night to set this year’s council tax.   As usual, a lengthy debate.   There were three options open to us:

• Sir Steve Bullock’s 2.5% rise
• The Green Party’s 2.5% rise (with some different spending priorities to the Mayor’s)
• The Lib Dem proposal to FREEZE Council Tax at the current rate

The Lib Dem group proposed to freeze this year’s council tax to try and make things slightly easier for people in the face of the recession.   It’s not a radical proposal – neighbouring Greenwich Council (Labour led) and Southwark Council (Lib Dem led) have done the same thing, as have at least 9 other London Boroughs.   We proposed to pay for the freeze by re-allocating a fund the Mayor has set up for (so far unspecified) recession-fighting.   The Lib Dem group said we’d judge individual schemes the Mayor put forward on their merits and fund them from the Council’s reserves.  This is money the Council puts aside for rainy days – and as I said in my speech last night, it’s more than a little rainy at present.  The people who are really being hit hard at the moment are those in work who live in a Council house.  They’re seeing their rent rise by 6% and Council Tax by 2.5% – at a time when employers are cutting shifts and making tiny cost of living rises.  It’s these people – the working poor – who’d have benefitted most from our amendment.

Our amendment was put to the vote and had the support of all 17 Lib Dems, plus the 2 Socialists and 2 of the Tories (a bizzare alliance, but reflecting the broad support for a tax freeze elsewhere in London).  The 6 Greens voted against, as did Labour, so the freeze motion fell.  The Green amendment was then put to the vote and was only supported by their group and the Socialists, so fell.

Then the Mayor’s budget was put to the vote – and here’s where it got interesting – all opposition parties voted against, except the Tories, who abstained.   As a couple of Labour councillors were absent, that meant the vote was tied.  So the Tory Chair of Council ended up passing the budget on his casting vote!

All in all, an interesting night.   The Greens could see they weren’t going to get a majority for their proposals, yet refused to back ours, despite the Lib Dem proposals gaining the support of the other 3 opposition parties.   The Tories had TWO chances to stop the Mayor’s budget – they could have voted against, which would have seen it fall, or the chair of Council could have cast his vote against, but he chose not to. 

So, residents of Lewisham face a 2.5% rise – the second highest in inner London, and the only one of the inner London councils south of the river to increase Council Tax this year.