Agenda and minutes

Apologies from Joe Dunton who is now unable to attend. Full information briefing is available in packs to take away from the meeting.

Hear from…

• Ladywell Fields User Group
  Iona close Nature Reserve volunteering project – Robert Sheppard
• The Positive Ageing Council with ‘Winning Post Arts and Sports Service’ 

Physical activity for older people – POSAC Chair, Peggy Fitzsimmons, member, Yvonne Williams and Coleen Jenningsfrom Winning Post

• G.W. Training LTD – Community developer

The Rushey Green Community Hub Gayle Wallace

• Lewisham Irish Community Centre
  Play Group Project  - Kathleen Sheridan and Jane Boyd (Youth Worker)
• Rushey Green Time Bank

The community garden waste clean up
The Rushey Green Festival – Philippe Granger

The projects that were granted funding from the Rushey Green local assembly fund in 2013-14 have been asked back to report on the outcomes of the project, how they spent the funding and what have they achieved, have they achieved more or have they achieved less

Irish Community Centre

Junior Youth project, set up in response to a consultation with the local community to develop 8-11 year olds health and wellbeing. The award of £3000 has allowed the centre as a whole to expand services and widen their reach into the wider community and work to sustainability. In particular provide free access to local children, it has allowed the recruitment of 2 youth workers and organisers of the weekly project and support a team of volunteers. Added stability by designing a weekly programme to meet need. The group expanded in a capacity and range of services provided. has a capacity of 34 children weekly and they all come from local school – predominantly from Holbeach School. Activities include cookery, crafts, design, sport music, taster classes and the recently the centre has worked with Dalmain Athletic girls football club to bring indoor football. Improving access to multisport and outdoor activities. We were able to build on existing partnerships and work with new local groups by receiving the funding. This was excellent seed funding which has made the project more attractive to other funders.

Any questions for Kathleen

Q. Is it open to anyone 

A. yes all children 8-11 years.

Q. Do we know how many from Rushey Green?

A. attendees come from 5 schools 3 from Rushey green and the majority from Holbeach, but approximately 85 % are Rushey green residents or learners

Former Councillor Peggy Fitzsimmons

Peggy introduced Colleen but want to let people know that POSC is totally run by older people we have is the pensioners themselves tell us what they want to do. Must be positive solution led and it is really working. Peggy introduced Yvonne, a new member to the steering group who has taken part in the activities provided by the funding she is here to tell the group how she feels. Peggy thanked Rushey Green for Providing the money and it has not stopped with the fund as POSAC has continued to fund successful project to keep things going.

Yvonne Williams, spoke to share experience. Yvonne let the meeting know the kind of activities she was involved in and how she felt including how much fun she had had and  how much better she feels. As a newcomer to Positive Ageing Council it lives up to its title.

Colleen Jennings from Winning Post Arts and Sports Service, gave a breakdown of the figures of attendance feedback success and postcodes of those attending – available on request, or attached to these minutes

Any Questions.

Q. Qi Gong? Where is it and is it happening now? 

A. It is going on but it is currently full and there is a waiting list. POSAC are  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

Last Rushey green assembly you may remember we ran a hotspot mapping exercise where were certain issues were inside your packs you will see we have fed this into lots of areas of the councils business, there is scope to develop this. There are places we know of that might have issues but perhaps are not on the map so we expect this to grow at first. Cllr Walsh has sent this onto the councils heads of service, and hopefully we will use this to create actions out of this. And they will start to target the areas on the map. And we will report back on how far we have come. This has also been fed into the safer neighbourhood team about the issues of anti social behaviour and crime. We want to come up with positive action led solutions to make our ward vibrant and prosperous

Are there any questions on where that feedback has gone.

Q. people don’t pay their council tax, there are some how don’t who should be but we are very good at collecting it. If you want to raise council tax issues with me during the break I am happy to pick this up with you (Cllr Walsh).

Q. I mange the Chinese grocery - Lots of problems dog mess and litter by the Turkish shops, gets days to get it cleared the train station, this is the key area and as a business it is just not on that that area is so poorly looked after, street drinkers, have bought it up with safer neighbourhood team and the council.

We are happy to add your issues to the map

Q. Do the local businesses get invites?

Yes they do, the flyers are delivered to businesses for this meeting and all meetings

Q. Would like to ask about the Catford Market are they going to be more stalls as it seems under used

The problem we have is that you cant make stall holders take up pitches. (Cllr Muldoon)

Further discussion around the market, charges etc. we will contact the Principle Market officer for information on the Market.

Clarification that the Map exercise is a working document and is on the website for people to look at and to feed in to it. Consider should we be looking at dog control? and dog fouling is a massive issue and, licensing dogs would be something you need to talk about with the local MP.  Rubbish, dog fouling, fly tipping is a massive issue. This is why we are trying to tackle the hot spot areas.

Q. local businesses. Karen Small co group members, approaches local businesses to encourage them to come to the assembly. Local businesses should think about coming together themselves. Being solution focused. How we can look into fining as a way for local income generation. Opportunity for local people to have the solutions that can then be taken.

Andy and Lucy Local Assemblies Team – introduced the exercise for the second half of the meeting, Andy is the Local Assembly Manager. Those who have been involved for a while have been involved in framing the Priorities. How may people know what the priorities are? Feedback from the room. Andy stated that these are very general, we think it would be helpful to do some work in trying to refine these a bit and get a clearer scope on these. Some examples of other wards were put up for reference.

Lucy explained the exercise, talk as a group to find out what your top issues are around the priorities, everything you get down will be taken away and feed these ideas into the funding and action plan. If you want to be a part of the co group to help with this, there are sign up sheets available. Rushey Green will launch the assembly funding earlier this year. In the summer. Funding applications will be based around the priorities and you will get a chance to vote. Make sure that the funding and the energy of officers is channelled into the right places

We focused briefly on older people particularly men , children and young people want to see more youth provision and things for older youth. Would like to see things taken forward.

Major issue that state of the pavements dog mess, increase visibility of street cleaners there is more dog faeces.

We definitely fly tipping and wanted to add more things to map. Feeling children don’t feel streets are safe and clean opportunity for children any way engage young people to start their own hot spot map and education more places for things for them to do. More interagency action inspired by Ladywell fields task force that deals with hotspots and tackle them ourselves. Better lighting. Increase dog fouling signage

Market stalls on Catford Broadway, actually pin point what we need, local money is going to Lewisham market not Rushey green, better quality shops, just 99p shops focus on the regeneration. Gives the people in Catford more choice. Traders need more support more culture and arts programmes.

Dog fouling, toilets for public use. Local toilet scheme especially signage.

Discussion around the regeneration of Catford Time Scales

Discussion around quality of shops and why Catford residents have to go elsewhere to get what they need. We are worried we will kill Catford if we don’t act. We need to think about our children’s future in the area. Give us something better.

All these comments at co group will develop a work programme where the assembly can address these issues we will try and make change.

Constable Robert Pearson gave an update on local crime statistics and trends in the area. Particularly raised the issue of opportunistic robberies and the importance of locking house and car doors.  Constable Pearson raised how the SNT are working on intervention with people with drug and alcohol problems and roughs sleepers outreach as trying to solve the problem rather than issues fines that don’t get paid. Constable Pearson let the attendees know about the Safer neighbourhood panel and welcomed people to contact him with more information About coming on board with this panel so you can influence direct. Contact Robert for further information.

Great to see how many people care about their area, the passion is great.

The Fire at the Catford Tavern. What is happening now with that development. There was further discussion around the planning of this development and that further information is available from the planning department. The Cllrs need to be mindful of not prejudicing a planning applications. Residents should keep eyes open for signage around the building that refers to the specifics of the planning application.

Discussion around the timings and changes to the Catford town centre regeneration and that it will be a fair while coming. There are plans to create a community enterprise hub and creative space in the town hall building over the next 3 years. The assembly will endeavour to keep residents as up to date as possible on any changes and updates as they come in.

Information was given on Community clean up days, voter registration, Catford green development open day invitation and the results of the Big Budget Challenge