The group will be holding its first meeting this Wednesday, 24th March, at 7.30pm at the New Testament Church of God on Lee High Road.

Everyone’s invited to come along and discuss how we can work together to breathe life into the Centre and develop a community vision for the longer term.   We’ve drafted a constitution for the new group (which was discussed at the last assembly meeting on 19th January and will be put forward for adoption on the meeting on Wednesday) and we’re also looking for people to join the group’s committee.

We’ll also be updating everyone on what’s happened so far:

• The launch of our online survey at www.tinyurl.com/leegate – also available in hard copy to collect from retailers in the centre in coming weeks.
• The appointment of our new Town Centre Manager
• The owners’ offer of an empty unit rent-free to house our new youth group and other community activities

We’ll also have a speaker from the Meanwhile Project, a national project to encourage interim use of empty commercial premises.

Everyone in Lee Green Ward should have received a flyer about this in the past week or so.  It promises to be a positive evening, I hope as many local people as possible will be able to make it.

The Council tell us their contractors went out to repair it last Thursday, but as they started to dig, even more of the road collapsed.  A detailed investigation is now promised, and repairs will be undertaken once this is complete.

If anyone has any ideas what’s caused this, or knows of a bigger pothole in Lee Green, do let us know!

Between 9am and noon every Saturday between this Saturday (20th March) until 28th November, you can take along garden waste in plastic or reusable bags. Flowers and plants, grass clippings, hedge trimmings, leaves, and twigs and branches up to four inches in diameter will all be accepted.

Alternative drop off points are available at Girton Road Car Park, Sydenham; Kitto Road, outside Orange Café, Telegraph Hill and Laurence House Car Park, Catford.

The service is free, but residents should bring along proof of address and ID, otherwise they may be refused access to the service.

This year’s performances at Lee Green are at the following times:

Tuesday 20th April 7pm
Wednesday 21st April 7pm
Thursday 22nd April 7pm
Friday 23rd April 7pm
Saturday 24th 12pm & 6pm
Sunday 25th 12pm & 3pm

There are also performances at Forest Hill, New Cross and Lewisham Sainsbury’s – details on the Teatro Vivo website.

You can also watch a trailer here.

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

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

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

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.