Agenda and draft minutes

Councillor Kevin Bonavia and Councillor Amanda De Ryk welcomed everyone to first assembly to be held at the new Parkside SE10 and apologised on behalf of Councillor Gareth Siddorn who was unable to attend the meeting.

Strategic Waste and Environment Manager Sam Kirk provided an update post the ‘let’s talk rubbish’ consultation which had 6,000 responses.

To summarise the Council has agreed to:

•           Keep a weekly comingled recycling service

•           Introduce a subscription garden waste service from June 2016:

•           £45 from June to March 2017

•           £60 per annum thereafter

•           Introduce a weekly food collection service

•           Reduce refuse collections to fortnightly

For a copy of the full presentation contact the Local Assembly Manager Paul Gale on 020 8314 3387 or email paul.gale@lewisham.gov.uk

Q Can we recycle sweet wrappers and are you going to provide comprehensive information about what can be recycled?

A No not sweet wrappers. It is complicated, but if in doubt do leave it out. The Government is looking at a national list as to what can be recycled. We want mixed plastic packaging, pots, tubs and trays and items such as plastic bottles.

Q Can we have more Textile and Domestic Appliance banks as Tesco has reduced the amount that they have?

A We want more textile Banks, but it does encourage fly-tipping and the commodities market has dropped out of recycling. Textile waste used to attract £600 per tonne, but it is less than £150 now. Therefore it is increasingly difficult to get these. This is the same with Domestic Appliances, we want more Banks, but I do not think it is going to happen.

Q I’m concerned about the amount of bins outside properties especially homes converted into flats.

A We are looking at what other local authorities are doing and maybe people can look at sharing.

Q Are you having problems with garden waste collection as I have only had two from four?

A This is worrying and I’ll take your details and look into this.

Q Can we recycle polystyrene?

A No

Alex Wicks told the assembly that the event this year will be on 10th-11th September at the same location as last year. Issues raised previously have involved traffic, road closures and sound and we are continuing to work on these. We hope that last year the road closures had less impact as we certainly did not have the level of complaints from year one. The main issue regarding sound last year was stage two, so this year it will be at the other end of the site with the sound going across the Heath. Last year there was a great deal of rain at the end of the festival and the large vehicles involved in the clearing process did cause a bit of damage to the Heath. We obviously repaired this and this year there are contingency plans for if this happens again. We do work closely with the local community and we support Blackheath Village Day and Meantime. People can approach us for support and their ideas. We also have a public meeting to discuss the event and this will happen in July and will be widely publicised.

Q We did lose the 380 bus last year and it did affect quite a few people.

A I will feed this back and we can look into it with TfL

Q You need to publicise the event earlier so that we can plan

A Yes we will do this

Matt Henaughan presented the following report regarding the initial results of the consultation regarding the future of Blackheath Changing Rooms that was run from 28 January 2016 to 17 April 2016 inclusive.

Background - Blackheath Changing rooms have been out of commission for a number of years since asbestos was found in the building. The buildings formerly housed changing rooms and toilet facilities for users of the heath. They are now only used for the storage of games equipment and as a temporary holding site for large items that have been dumped on the heath.

The Blackheath Changing Rooms site sits in a very sensitive location as it is Metropolitan Open Land, within the Blackheath Conservation Area, part of a World Heritage Site buffer zone and also adjacent to listed buildings. As such any potential replacement would need to be mindful of these policy constraints, be ancillary to the heath, and positively contribute to the community and heritage features which are unique to this part of the borough.

Lewisham Council Parks and Cultural and Community Development teams are currently considering the future of the derelict buildings and have run an initial consultation to understand local residents and user’s views as to what should be done.

The consultation ran online through the Lewisham Consultation Portal from 28 January to 17 April 2016, after it had been launched at the Blackheath Local Assembly on 27 January 2016. Additionally there were a number of local consultation engagement events held throughout the consultation period.

Consultation results - There were 75 online responses to the survey (though two of these were identical repeat responses) additionally there were 5 email responses and 1 paper response (the paper response has subsequently been inputted online). Key findings are as follows:

Demography

-           76% of the online respondents live within the Borough of Lewisham

-           29% of online respondents are aged 35-39, 20% aged 40-44, 10% aged 45-49 and 10% aged 65+

-           79% of online respondents are white british, and 10% are any other white background. (70% of residents in Blackheath Ward are white according to the 2011 census)

-           60% of online respondents are female with 34% of respondents being male.

-           87% of online respondents do not consider themselves to be disabled, and 5% do have a disability. (6.3% of residents in Blackheath Ward are disabled according to the 2011 Census)

-           45% of online respondents have no religion, 41% are Christian.

-           82% of online respondents are heterosexual, 4% gay/lesbian and 1% bisexual

-           79% of online respondents are neither pregnant nor on maternity leave, 5% of respondents are pregnant or on maternity leave.

Thoughts on the Changing Rooms

-           87% of online respondents are aware of the existing changing rooms.

-           27% are concerned about the current usage (or lack thereof)

-           19% are concerned about maintenance and cleanliness

-           17% are concerned about health and safety

-           15% are concerned about anti-social behaviour

-           9% are concerned about the running costs

-           A  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

There is £12,500 available for Blackheath ward and the maximum amount that you can apply for is £2,000. The Coordinating Group will consider applications higher than this amount if they deem the application to be ‘extraordinary’ and of real benefit to Blackheath ward. The money must be spent on one of these priorities:

•           Environment and community

•           Provision for older people, young people and children

•           Parking, streets and waste

•           Crime and anti-social behaviour

Details including an application form are now on the Blackheath web page. The deadline for applications is Wednesday 28 September 2016 at 9am.

Quaggy Luncheon Club – Simon Riley apologised that Angela Kadri from the Quaggy could not be at the assembly in person. The Quaggy Carnival is taking place on Saturday 2 July from 12.30 and will be at the Quaggy and Morden Mount School opposite here, this has been going for some years now and is a great community event.

The Lunch Club received money for 2 coach trips combined with the Darby and Joan Club, the first trip was to Eastbourne and everyone had a great time so thank you to the Blackheath Assembly.

A further trip is planned in September to Whitstable. We received some funding for further small / local trips and these are currently being planned. Once again a big thank you for your continued support.

Age Exchange Games Workshop Project written update - Communities at Play is a project based on running a series of workshops with educational charity ‘Universal Board Games’.  The idea of the workshops is to promote the use of board games as an alternative to the modern hi tech world of on-line and computer games and to encourage intergenerational play.  Getting young people and families to play together whether that is brother and sister, best friends or grandparents and grand-children.

Each workshop can take up to 25 people at any one time.  The workshops were run in an open way where participants could drop in for a short period of time or the whole session.  We had originally planned six workshops but the match funding we received from Royal Borough of Greenwich means we have been able to extend the programme to seven workshops.  Four took place in the Easter holidays, then three more were planned for one Saturday in each month of May, June and July.

In the six workshops we have run over 113 people have attended from age 6 up to over 80 years of age.  The feedback has been really positive.  The most striking story was from how one mum used the session as a safe bonding place for her son and separated Dad in the first half and then with the new step dad in the second half, great idea and her son and both dads had a great time.

We also know that one Mum has since hired universal board games to run her son’s birthday party, we are so happy to hear that playing board games  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

Cllr Bonavia explained that the Coordinating Group is a small group of volunteers that helps to plan assembly, promote the assembly and look at funding applications. It meets no more than about 4 times per year and anyone is welcome to put themselves forward to join. It really is a great link between the residents and the Council, so please do think about volunteering.

•           Cllr Bonavia explained finance is already very challenging with us having to cover a 45 Million Pound shortfall, so there are tough times ahead. We will continue to consult about these challenges.

•           On Blackheath are continuing to provide £15,000 per year towards local projects on the Heath. This goes via the Blackheath Joint Working Party.

•           The Council is looking at the remaining 7 Council libraries and them becoming Community Libraries.

•           Lewisham Peoples Day is on Saturday 9 July from 12pm at Mountsfield Park.

•           We’re getting close to being able to fully fund Blackheath Fireworks through sponsorship

•           Blackheath Society have their AGM on Thursday 30 June from 7.30 at St Mary’s Church Hall, please do come along. It is only £15 per year to join the Society so please join if you’re not already a member.

•           On Blackheath have funded a story board project which will be a series of 7 large metal boards telling the story of what is happening on the Heath and its history. There will be a presentation at the AGM, this will be like a walking trail around the Heath and will be a tremendous local asset.

Rachel from Lewisham and Blackheath Knoll Residents Group stated that they are getting concerned about the loss of garden space through planning applications. Within Eliott Park 10% of garden space has been lost and in Granville Park it is really bad, with the Lewisham developments making things worse. We really need to be careful about this as it does affect the environment. We have started a petition at Change.org called ‘Save our London Green Spaces

There being no other business the Assembly closed at 9.20 pm and no conflicts of interest were declared. Cllr Bonavia and Cllr De Ryk both thanked Marie Griffin and the staff at Parkside SE10 for their hospitality.

The next meeting is on Wednesday 2 November from 7.30pm at St Matthew Academy.