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.

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.

• borrow a book, CD or DVD and get a free fairtrade teabag (while stocks last!)
• on Monday coming (1st March), the Manor House is hosting a Fairtrade Tea Dance from 2pm until 4pm.  Fairtrade tea and cakes are provided.  Call 8852 0357 to book your place.
• there’ll be a showing of the Black Gold Movie ( a film about coffee and trade) on Saturday 6th March at 2.30pm
• ‘The Luckiest Nut in the World’ is an event for kids and families on Sunday 7th March at 1pm

All sounds good – disappointed I can’t make it for the Fairtrade cake, but probably best that the public is spared my dancing…!

The contractors are Volker Highways.  If there are any problems, please contact Brian Humphris at the Council on 8314 2261 or his colleague Samantha McKerell on 8314 2181.

I raised this issue with the project team at a meeting with them on Thursday night.  They have kindly agreed to take this up with their suppliers to avoid this happening again.

Should this be a problem in future, this can be reported to Costain’s Project Manager, Clive Kraus, on 8297 1032 or e-mail clive.kraus {at} costain(.)com

Please do also let your local councillors know. We have a monthly meeting with the project team and can raise issues like this on residents’ behalf.

Finally, Costain are holding a drop-in session for local residents from 2pm on Friday 26th February – simply turn up at the Brightfield Road site entrance if there’s an issue you’d like to raise. I understand the intention is to continue these drop-in sessions once a fortnight at the same time.

We had a walk around the Leegate Centre and discussed the various shops that have moved on over the last few years, and also some ideas Salma has to kick-start some positive activity at the centre. Salma’s main priority is to provide information and support to businesses in the area, and she’s already been out and about meeting shopkeepers.

One thing the Town Centre Management team are promoting at the moment is the annual ‘Who do you love?’ competition to find Lewisham’s best independent business.   You may remember that last year, the winner was Lee Green resident David Rundel – better known as The Sausage Man. The closing date to nominate someone for this year’s award is February 28th, and you can do so using the form here.

I’m sure we all wish Salma the best of luck in her new role.  You can contact her on 8314 8246 or at towncentremanagement {at} lewisham.gov(.)uk