Agenda and minutes

Councillor Amrani, Chair, opened the meeting and thanked everyone for attending. Introduced Councillor Stamirowski and gave apologies from Councillor Smith who had other council business. Cllr Amrani also gave apologies from Matthew Lloyd of Conisborough College who was due to feedback on the success of the film club and show the films made by the students. Unfortunately he is unwell and unable to attend. The chair alerted the attendees to the additional information in their booklets to take away on Community Clean up day  - 21^st March 2014 and other useful information

Who decides what happens to Catford Shopping centre and drives future regeneration?  With changes to the town centre you have asked to find out more. Representatives of the Lewisham Council Corporate Assets team will attend the meeting to answer your questions and hear your thoughts.

KplomLotsu from corporate asset team came to present to attendees on the Catford Regeneration Partnership Limited. How this body was set up and why. Until there can be a comprehensive redevelopment of the town centre there was a need to manage the centre. Details of the presentation are available in the agenda pack. The presentation given by Kplom stressed the need for shorter leases for stores in order to be ready for the regeneration after the TFL study has been completed on the rerouting if the south circular, which has held regeneration plans up. The re-route was back on the ‘agenda’ following a piece of work TFL recently carried out and the council had commissioned a master planning exercise to look at options. The hope is to bring Catford back as a buzzing hub and heart of Lewisham.

There followed a couple of questions from the floor on the Holbeach car park and the cost of parking in Lewisham compared to Beckenham for example. What does the regeneration has to offer with regard car parking. Cllr Stamirowski pointed out the cuts have influenced car parking costs. Cllr Amrani felt that if parking was of particular interest to the room the assembly would endeavour to bring an appropriate council officer to address any issues you have.

Q. How can the community input to the vision being created by this team. How can the community feed into these plans. It feels piecemeal and not strategic regarding units or the mix. This is not clear to the community – how can we shape the future. I would like to see more cleaner greener spaces. What are the amenities for the new development at the Catford stadium site. What are the timescales?

Q. we would like decent shops. Right now unless you want all the same it is not worth going there.

A. There will be consultation and the community will have a chance to comment on the plans. The master planner will be doing detailed work on the future plans.

There is no realistic expectation that Catford regeneration to be completed within 10 years. With regard the quality of shops. Nationwide agents are employed to promote the shopping centre to businesses. They have good Calibre clients. The issue is also around the size of the units. The length of leases being offered to shops, so that the council is able to access them when the time comes to regenerate, means that these are short leases and larger businesses are less likely to want to take out short term leases with a break clause. Need to maintain flexibility.

Timescales regeneration takes a long time by its nature, with several partners.

Discussion was had around buses not stopping in the centre, the roads and pinch points such as widening Catford Bridge Kplom felt he couldn’t comment on buses as that was an issue for TFL. But feels the master planners working with TFL would help with this. Apparently very expensive to widen a  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2.

This time hear from…

• The Conisborough College Film Club –  your chance to see the films created by the children of the film club and hear from the director about how the project came together.

• The Archibald Corbett Society – an update of their first year as an organisation, made possible by funding from this assembly.

• The Conisborough College Cuppa Club – hear more about an intergenerational project that helps break down barriers by bringing younger and older people together.

·        Conisborough College Cuppa Club

Using money from the assembly Conisborough set up a cuppa club, an intergenerational project to break down barriers between younger and older people. The students originally looked into finding local people with no families and go into homes but it was felt that was not a workable project, so the students came up with the idea to go into nursing homes. The group worked with 5 nursing homes. The children worked hard to prepared the food and also worked with the food bank in Forest Hill. The students went into the nursing homes and chatted and sang with the older people while sharing tea and the food they had prepared. The students really enjoyed being able to spend time with older people, talking about the past and about school and other interests the children had now.

Thank you for the funding to be able to make this project successful.

Cllr Amrani thanked Saba for her excellent efforts and for those of the children of Conisborough who were involved

·        Archibald Corbett Society

Peter Ranken from the Archibald Corbett Society explained how the funding from the Assembly allowed the start up of the organisation. One of the things the assembly money contributed to was the production of the ACS news letter, copies were available on the evening. The newsletter gives greater details of the activities the society have been engaged with in the last year. He gave further information on the neighbourhood forum set up under the localism act, devolving power to local communities. Peter also discussed the status of Abbotshall Road healthy lifestyle centre. They will officially open the site in May. Not just a sports club but also geared to briefing competitive sport to younger people. The centre will promote healthy eating, there is a community garden that will grow food for the café. The centre will work with local gps to help with prevention and set up individual healthy lifestyle plans.

Q are the facilities for everyone or just for people in the Corbet Estate.

A. no these facilities are for everyone

Hear from the road safety team about the cycle loan scheme, the cycle training available, and how getting on your bike not only benefits you, but your area as well.

Cycling has been raised as an important issue for people in Catford South. Liz Brooker from the road safety and cycling team gave a presentation on the kinds of initiatives being run to help people get on their bikes, how this helps benefit the area and personal health. Presentation available on agenda pack

Q. How much is the bike loan scheme

A. £10 per month – but to buy they are between 3-400 pounds

Q. We feel very unsafe cycling in Catford South – especially around Canadian Avenue – which is part of a national cycling route. It is very dangerous. Infrastructure – I cycle from Corbett into the city. This ward is one of the most dangerous I cycle through. I don’t think councillors in this ward have signed up for safe for cycling.  Will the councillors sign up to this.

A. I am not an engineer. I am an educator, try and get info to feed back on the space for cycling scheme. Totally agree about Canadian avenue, it is scary. I will feed that back. Any other concerns – my email is on the agenda so please contact me direct.

A.I have been a cyclist for a number of years. I agree with safety concerns. Catford is like a death trap. Car drivers have no respect for children on bikes. The bikes now stay in the shed, only come out to go to the park not on the street. There is also an issue with parking on the street around Sandhurst school.

Send Cllr Stamirowski an email following this up.

Not up to the council to make people put their bins back. there is a problem with the structure of some of the road. We are happy to look into it but it has to be realistic.

Q. concerned about occasions I have had near misses by very anti social cyclist cycling on the streets. When I have challenged cyclist I get very verbal response. The A. Halfords route is part of the cycle route. I take your point it is about respect on both sides. Some are good some are not. It is like people in general.

• Safer Brownhill Road campaign
• The Opening of the Abottshall Road Healthy Living Centre
• The Catford (Corbett) Neighbourhood Forumand more…

Safer Brownhill road, I organised the petition last year following the death of a young girl. I set about getting a petition together to present to tfl, 3 objectives 1 assess the safety of Brownhill and Torridon road junction, restore a pedestrian crossing and look at the zebra crossing on the junction of

Have over 1500 signatures in a couple of weeks. Really pleased with the support, Heidi Alexander supported the campaign we were thrilled with the result. Preented to Boris Johnson, chair of TFL, presented in December. Met Caroline Pidgeon and she visited the site. She agreed with the points especially poor visability. Applied pressure to TFL mid January we got a response. Happy to revieve the safety making the lines more visable, agreed to put up warning signs to altert about the crossing brighter flashing bulbs, agreed within 10-12 weeks. Will keep posted on that. Addition to this they have agreed to do a safety assessment to the Brownhill / Torridon road assessment. By 2016 we will keep applying pressure. We got a letter from Boris great achievement from the community. Together we can make progress.

Catford Neighbourhood forum. Barbara Grey.

Public sector is losing money and staff, the neighbourhood forum is about the community taking ownership of their place. Catford South we have shopping parade with local people saying they didn’t like how it looked we were able to get funding to improve this whole area. We worked with businesses to engage them more through the Christmas market, and the area is starting to change. We have been working closely with the healthy lifestyle centre. I could go on and on about the things going on by community people. This gives us a legal framework which we can feed into changing legislation to allow the community to achieve more no reason that this local plan couldn’t spread further from Corbett estate to the wider ward. We have to go through a legal press, we have to have a forum, did a consultation over 60 people involved, about 40 people and residents and businesses involved in the forum, worked with the council and planning. The next stage it to develop a plan we will have our own master plan for the Corbett estate. And opportunity ti bring about further change. Get involved and get in touch. This will start in the summer and go on for about a year. The neighbourhood forum is open now so go online and feed into that.

Q. What about us who don’t live on the Corbett Estate, how do we benefit from this?

A. The neighbourhood plan can develop further into a bigger area, need to get through the first steps and continue to develop further into CATFORD South, how to we broaden this out to the wider ward. Everything we do for Corbett benefits the wider ward, such as the work done on the Sandhurst Parade, which is used by everyone.

• How community members can get involved in the Catford South Assembly Communications working group
• A new way to gather project ideas for the Catford South Assembly fund online.

The Catford South Communications Working Group

The Catford South Assembly Coordinating group felt that there were so many things happening in the ward and so many groups doing great work that we need a more coordinated approach to marketing the area to residents, businesses and community groups.

The group want to achieve this by developing ideas such as a Catford South community website, a greater social media presence and a local information directory (printed for those not online)

We are looking for interested, local people who may be able to spare a small amount of time volunteering to get this project up and running.

We are particularly looking for people with marketing or design skills, have good web based skills or have set up a web site, are a wiz on Facebook or are a dab hand at tweeting. We are also looking to find people who have experience in communications with the community in any format.

If you are interested in joining the communications working group to help us get things started, please contact Lucy, information on the back page of this booklet, or sign up tonight.

A new way to feed into the assembly process.

We realise you are busy people and no matter how committed you are to developing your community, you cant always make the assembly meeting.

Catford South Assembly have been asked to pilot a new way of engaging the community between meetings, by finding out peoples project ideas to help us develop this years assembly funding plan and feed into the community action plan.

To give us your project ideas, all you need to do is to log onto the web page, tell us what priority your idea addresses and give us your idea. If you are not online, ask a family member, friend or neighbour to help you – it only takes a minute. You can also call Lucy and give your idea to her – she can fill in the online form for you.

This is just the start of the process and wont replace the work done at the meetings in any way. Assembly meeting attendees will have a chance to look through the ideas generated by this pilot and have the final input on what gets taken forward.

To log on and give us your ideas, please use the link below

www.lewisham.gov.uk/getinvolved/localassemblies/Catford-South-Assembly/Pages       

We are sure you know people who would love to give us there ideas on improving their area, so please share this with local friends and neighbours. The pilot is open now and will run until the end of April. We will report back on the outcomes at the next assembly meeting.

Volunteer centre Lewisham gave a very short talk about a befriending scheme. The services trains volunteers and matches them with the right people as service users. We are working to target the Catford south area with the Corbett residents association. For more information contact the volunteer centre to get involved

Anyone interested cards left so people can contact.

Cllr Stamirowski befriending service for older more isolated vulnerable adults, mostly elderly but not exclusively. Helped someone get out to the cinema.

So many people are isolated and lonely, it is an excellent scheme.

Healthy lifestyle centre will also set up a companion scheme as part of their offer.

Telephone: 020 8613 7113
Email: info@volunteercentrelewisham.org.uk
Website: www.volunteercentrelewisham.org.uk

Joe Dunton gave a short presentation on being registered to vote under the new system,. He acknowledged that as an engaged group it was likely that most people in attendance were already registered but stressed the importance of helping older friends or relatives and younger people who may be eligible to vote for the first time to get registered. An attendee suggested going to the stations to encourage voter registration,. Joe detailed initiatives the electoral services had to drive voter registration including work with the young mayors team. He explained that the way that people register to vote has changed.  There used to be a ‘household’ registration but now each person that needs to register, registers themselves individually.

·      People already on the electoral register were checked against Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) records. If they were found on these records their details were transferred automatically and Lewisham Council sent a letter to people to confirm this.

·      When peoples names weren’t found they were asked to re-register under the new system and sent reminders.

If people aren’t transferred because they weren't found on the DWP files or haven't re-registered themselves they will be taken off the electoral register in December 2016.  

Postal or Proxy Vote

If you vote by postal or proxy and weren’t automatically transferred, you wont be able to vote by post or proxy in the 2015 General Election.  You can still go into the polling station and vote but you need to re-apply to vote by post or proxy.

What you need to do

·      If you got a letter saying that you are registered under the new system and none of your details have changed, you do not need to do anything.

·      If you have received an invitation to register then you need to complete the application form online or by the paper form that Lewisham Council Electoral Services sent you.

·      If you have moved, you can register online or contact electoral services for a form to be sent to you.

·      If your details have changed (for example, your surname has changed through marriage), or if you want to have a postal vote, contact electoral services on the number below.

You can register to vote online in a couple of minutes. All you need is your name, address, date of birth and National Insurance number.

To register online go to www.gov.uk/register-to-vote Contact Electoral Services if you have any questions electoral.services@lewisham.gov.uk or call 020 8314 6086