Agenda and draft minutes

1.   Welcome from Cllr Paul Bell, Chair of the Telegraph Hill Assembly

1.1    Cllr Bell welcomed everyone to the assembly meeting and introduced Cllr Luke Sorba. He explained that Cllr Millbank sent apologies as she is away.

2. Adult Learning Lewisham

2.1    Selina Eldridge outlined the 2015-16 offer from Adult Learning Lewisham which includes English and Maths up to GCSE level, various arts, design and crafts courses, languages, ICT and dance. They also provide family learning, tasters and short courses.

2.2    There is a course overview booklet and the full prospectus is available on the website at

http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/myservices/education/adult/find-a-course

2.3    Course are delivered from three centres across the borough (Brockley Rise, Grove Park & Granville Park). To enrol you can visit one of these centres or phone 020 8314 3300 to speak to a member of the team.

2.4    We also run an 11 week course from our Brockley Rise Centre called Understanding the Language of Work. This is for speakers of other languages and also offers work placements to participants so if there is anyone from an organisation who would like to offer a placement please contact Sarah and she will pass on details to the tutors.

2.5    There are some special projects that we are running at the moment. One is the SPEC project. We are seeking volunteers to run English language clubs for speaker of other languages in community venues. We offer training in how to run these effectively. We are also looking for Please contact Sarah if you would like more information on this.

Q      What do courses cost?

A.     This depends on the length and type of course. All courses are subsidised by the Skills Funding Agency funding. Generally a full fee, 10 week course is around £90 but some include materials so are more. There are concessionary fees for older people and those on JSA and ESA benefits, these vary but are typically 50% reduction.

3. Let’s Talk Rubbish, Waste Consultation

3.1    Sam Kirk set the context for the proposed changes in Lewisham. As a borough we are one of the best at not sending rubbish to landfill with less than 1% ending up there. 80% of our rubbish goes to SELCHIP to be made into electricity but we need to start planning now as there is only 8-9 years left on this contract.

3.2    However our recycling figures do not compare well with other boroughs. Currently Lewisham recycles 17% of its rubbish compared with

- Bromley (48%)

- Southwark (34.5%)

- Greenwich (35%)

3.3    We need to be working towards the national target of 50% which will be introduced in 2020. Failure to hit this may incur fines.

3.4    One of the proposals is to separate paper. At the moment mixed recycling can cause contamination and result in recycled items being rejected at the processing plant. Separating paper would ensure that this does not occur and can bring in extra income.

Q.     Why are Lewisham’s figures so high and what can done about it?      

A.     Part of the reason that our figures are lower is that all of these boroughs have a separate food bin and this counts against their recycling targets. There is an added benefit too, as people with food bins tend to reduce their consumption once they see how much they waste.

Sam detailed the waste hierarchy

Prevention

   Reuse

         Recycle &

                                             Compost

                                                                        Energy

                                                                        Recovery

                                                                                                  Landfill

3.5   From the 1^st January we will need to separate glass, paper, cans & plastics.

3.6    The short video was shown which detailed the proposals that arebeing consulted on.

Q.     When and how will changes come into affect?

A.     We do not have details yet as this will depend on the results of the consultation, however we will roll out changes across the borough to allow us to manage the inevitable teething problems.

Q.     I have concerns about the incinerator, how do we know that the emissions are safe and how often are they monitored?

A.     The emissions are monitored every half an hour and you can view the figures on their website.

http://www.selchp.co.uk/your-waste/waste-from-local-authorities/our-emissions/

Q.     When you change to fortnightly collections, will this mean redundancies?

A.     Firstly, we are consulting currently and fortnightly collections are just one of the options that we are looking at. We will need to see what the results are before any changes were made. If we did go to fortnightly collections, we would still need a weekly food collection so there would be minimal if any loss of jobs.

Q.     Why aren’t you encouraging people to recycle more rather than making it harder?

A.     Some of the changes in recycling are imposed on us by government and so we do not have a choice. We do have a number of projects to encourage recycling including going into schools and regular coverage in Lewisham Life.

Q.     What is the driving force behind the change, money, recycling more or both?

A.     There are  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

4. New Cross Gate Trust Theatre School

    Assembly Funded Project Update

4.1    Jill Mountsford explain that New Cross Gate Trust had received £ 1,670 towards the £6,000 cost of their Summer Theatre School.

4.2    This project provide two weeks of full time activities for children aged 6-13 who live in either Telegraph Hill or New Cross Wards. 75% of those who attended did not have an Easter or summer holiday away from home.

4.3    Each year we do a musical and this year it was based on Alice in Wonderland. All the children read the book and all of them got a copy to keep.

4.4    The final performance at Besson Street Gardens is in front of family, friends and people from the local communityThey also received a DVD of their performance which was funded from the Telegraph Hill fund.

4.5    During the two weeks the children work on performance skills such singing, dancing, drama and they also work with art tutors on set and costume design. In addition they help with the publicity for the show. These activities build confidence, help them get active and contribute to increasing life skills. The remainder of the Assembly Fund money went towards paying for the tutors to deliver these activities.

4.6    There were 15 boys and 30 girls. All the girls wanted to be Alice and so they all got to be Alice!

4.7    Jill thanked the Assembly for their support that made a bid difference to the young people that had the opportunity to attend.

5. Ward Priorities Consultation

5.1    Attendees were asked to select their priorities for the coming year. The following were voted for and there as a café conversation to feed ideas into the action plan. Due to time restraint it was agreed that two priorities could be discussed together at some tables

·        Young People, Older People & Intergenerational Project

·        Clean Environment & Ecology

·        Neighbourliness, Community Activities, Events & Cohesion

·        Crime & Anti-social Behaviour

·        Parking, Road Safety & Traffic Calming

Young People,Older People & Intergenerational Project

Skill sharing - IT, social media strategies, how to…. sessions

Sheds project

Exploring nature together

Mentoring role for employment

Pre-school age involvement e.g. story telling

Projects with schools, citizenship, young Mayor & school councils

Young/Older people writing a dictionary for each other to help with understanding

Events e.g. Telegraph Hill Festival

Take advice, Lewisham Youth Theatre

Parenting skills training

Exploring what respect means to different generations & impact of behaviours

Open mich

Clean Environment & Ecology

Wheelie bins off the streets

Rat tax

Tree planting day, maintaining street trees & replacing damaged trees

Planters around trees for water supply

Work with schools and youth groups - education & involvement

Clean up days, one street at a time

Fostering ownership

Intergenerational activities, skills sharing & passing on knowledge

Raised beds on the estates to encourage the community

Local nature reserve & nature watch walks

Rewards - council tax rebate, time bank or vouchers

Neighbourliness, Community Activities, Events & Cohesion

Telegraph Hill Community Network - good progress on inclusion

Find ways of crossing boundaries

Don’t forget Honor Oak & Kender

Community weekend: more events throughout the year - lunches, picnics & parties

Online calendar bringing together all events

Volunteer clean-ups street co-ordinators and swaps

Crime & Anti-social Behaviour/Parking, Road Safety & Traffic Calming

What is safety? - road safety/home safety

Police resources

Police attitude

Enforcement

Fly tipping - on estates collecting evidence, enforcement by the council

Problem with litter outside the chicken shop, especially after school

Cared for environment

Anti-social drivers - 20 mile per our limit

Redesigning streetscapes

Involving TfL

6. Community updates

Changes to electoral registration

6.1    Mattias Bergström told the Assembly that each household should have received a letter detailing their entry on the electoral register. It is important that this is completed and returned to the council to ensure that they remain correctly registered.

6.2    Last year forms were sent out to each household to fill in, but many did not return them. This has resulted in about 10% of people not being included.

6.3    Sarah added that, although you cannot vote until you are 18, you can register when you are 16

If you have not received or have mislaid your letter

Contact

Electoral Services Lewisham Town Hall
Catford Road Se6 4ru

Tel:     020 8314 6086
Fax:    020 8314 3131
Email: electoral.services@lewisham.gov.uk  

.

Or        You can register to vote on line at https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote

for this you will need your address and your national insurance number.

Telegraph Hill Festival

6.4    Sanjit Chudha announced that planning is starting for next year’s festival and they are looking for volunteers. This is a community event and we welcome people from the local community to join in. The festival will run from 5^th-20^th March 2016

6.5       If you think you might be able to help us in 2016, please get in touch with pippabeagley@hotmail.com.  There is a more information about the type of roles available on the website http://telegraphhillfestival.org.uk/work-with-us/

7. Funding for Community Clean-up & Play Days

7.1    Sarah told the Assembly that there was some under spend for the 2014-15 Ward funding which was being made available for Community Clean-up & Play Days across the ward. This needs to be spent by March 2016.

7.2    Sarah left a sign up sheet for anyone who is interested to leave their details. She will then send them the application form and further details.

There being no other business, the meeting closed at 9.00pm with no declarations of interest.

Note: These are not verbatim minutes so questions and answers have been summarised.