Agenda and minutes

Cllr Feakes, Chair of the Forest Hill Assembly welcomed everyone to the meeting and thanked the children from the drumming club for their excellent performance. He then introduced Cllr Peake  and passed on Cllr Anne Affiku’s apologies for not being able to make the meeting.

Cllr Feakes apologised on behalf of the police who were unable to make the meeting due to operational commitments, however, they did supply a written update.

Charlene Noel and Angela Mullin from NCSS told the meeting about ‘Street a Week,’ this is a Multi agency borough wide operation, with the SNT, NCSS and RSL's working in partnership.

The overall aim of the project are:

·        to target those locations suffering from the highest volumes of term burglary offences.

·        to undertake a range of activities with partners to reduce crime, harden targets against crime, engage residents and increase confidence within the local community.

·        to target long term hot spots/hot streets.

·        to educate the local community on how to keep safe and give burglary advice, promote the Home Security Programme (Victim Support).

·        to promote neighbourhood watch schemes in the local area.

Street a Week will commence on the 22nd of May and last for two weeks.

They will be visiting the following streets on the following dates:

22 May Dartmouth Road 

23 May Kirkdale                            

24 May Longton Grove and Longton Avenue                                                                              

25 May Longfield Crescent 

26 May Dartmouth Road (repeat visit on a Sunday by SNT only)

27 bank holiday

28 May Sydenham Park Road                  

29 May Kirkdale

30 May Longton Grove and Longton Avenue (repeat visit)

31 May Longfield Crescent

31 SLP bus in Savacentre tbc

Angela will also be holding a surgery where local residents can come and talk to her about any community safety issues on the 7th of June at Forest Hill Pools.

Q Is this information available on your website?

A We can put it on

Marc Rowland a GP at the Forest Hill Centre explained that NHS Lewisham Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) is made up of 44 GP practices across Lewisham. We are responsible for planning and buying NHS services across the borough, and work with other clinicians and healthcare providers and the local authority to ensure that local people get the most accessible and effective healthcare services possible.

This includes:

• Elective hospital care
• Rehabilitation care
• Urgent and emergency care
• Most community health services
• Mental health and learning disability services

The Clinical Commissioning Group does not commission primary care services, which includes GPs, pharmacists, dentists and opticians. These are commissioned by NHS England.  

Lewisham CCG is overseen by the newly formed independent NHS England which ensures we have the capacity and capability to commission services successfully and to meet our financial responsibilities.

Along with commissioning services, we are also responsible for monitoring how well these services are provided. We can do this much better if we hear and understand what people think of their health services.

Rebecca Scott (Programme Director-Dulwich from NHS Southwark Clinical Commissioning Group) spoke briefly about the consultation currently under way on 'Improving health services in Dulwich and the surrounding areas'.

She explained that NHS Southwark CCG were consulting on some proposed changes to health services in the south of the borough, and that this could affect local people if they were registered with a GP in Southwark (eg Forest Hill Road Practice), or might wish to use health services in Southwark- eg at Dulwich Hospital.

She said that the CCG wanted to see a wider range of services available in community settings, and wanted to hear from people whether the list of services they were proposing was right. She also said that the additional services could be offered in two possible ways - either by having a larger health facility on the Dulwich Hospital site and core services only in general practices, or by having a smaller facility at Dulwich and more services in some of the larger general practices. She said that the CCG saw that there were advantages and disadvantages of both, but that they wanted to hear from the public.

She circulated a copy of the summary document, and encouraged people to complete the survey- either via a paper copy (available from freephone 0808 178 9055) or online.

Q In some parts of Forest Hill there is a greater distance to travel to the nearest GP than almost anywhere else in London. Do you think that there should be more GP’s covering Forest Hill?

A This is not perceived as a massive problem, however if we were to commission GP services we would be commissioning ourselves so this is covered by NHS England

Q Will I be able to access Southwark services if Lewisham if my GP does not provide them?

A Probably, it will depend on the services provided

Q Does the survey cover this whole area?

A It is not about an area, it  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

Melissa Knight from the Sydenham and Forest Hill Youth Forum presented the assembly with the results of a survey taken from 680 young people within their area. For a copy of the report contact Paul Gale on paul.gale@lewisham.gov.uk or phone 020 8314 3387

The report had several interesting conclusions and as a summary, it identified:

·       a lack of knowledge regarding provision in the area

·       a strong interest in art and design and music and drama

·       a fear of crime and gangs

·       a love of our parks and green spaces

·       concerns about dog mess and litter

Cllr Feakes thanked Melissa and told the assembly that this is a great insight into the views of our young people. He also reminded the meeting that the assembly has previously supported the work of the Sydenham and Forest Hill Youth Forum by providing funding.

Cllr Feakes told the assembly that every two years the assembly meets to look at it’s priorities and decide which areas the assembly should focus its work on. He asked the attendees to think about what they think the issues are in Forest Hill and to come up with some ideas on how to resolve them. He explained that the Coordinating Group will then meet to discuss these issues / ideas and these will form the basis of the assembly priorities over the next two years.

Cllr Feakes asked the assembly to think about some of the issues that that have been heard at this meeting and in particular around young people. The Forest Hill action plan was available for the attendees to look at.

The results from the table work will be fed into the Forest Hill action plan.

Tony Buckley from SEE3 Portas Pilot told the assembly about the action groups that are being set up to promote local high streets.

The aim is to encourage local people to get involved through the Town Teams.

The groups to be set-up are:

• Community development and engagement
• Creative and Enterprise – for local businesses and artists
• Events, marketing and communications – to communicate and advertise what is happening with the pilot.
• Built environment and public realm – physical environment and public space

Attendees were invited to put their names forward to join a team.

Cllr Feakes said that many of the benefits can be seen already, such as Forest Hill fashion Week, the markets and Jill. There is plenty going on locally and please do get involved.

Q No one tells me about these events, do you publicise them?

A It can be difficult to make people aware of what is going on, but we do publicise events using newsletters, email and posters etc.

Q What is the benefit of a pop-up shop if it soon disappears?

A They are called pop-up because they are only for the short-term, but if the business is successful they will sign a long term lease. Two out four pop-up shops have signed a long term lease. It’s a good way for a potential business to test the market before committing long term.

Q What is the latest with Jack?

A The problem has been finding a suitable premises, one of the reasons for this is that there are now less empty shops in Forest Hill. The idea now is that Jack will move around to different premises.

• Forest Hill Market–  Michael Abrahams from the Forest Hill Society told the assembly meeting that the market occurs on the first Sunday of every month, so the next one is on the 2^nd June. There will be 15 traders at the market, all of whom are local and the market will be from 11am – 3pm. Volunteers to help out are always appreciated.
• SEE3 Food Market – This will take place on Saturday 18 May outside Forest Hill Pools from 10am – 5pm. Many of the traders also trade at the Forest Hill Sunday market.
• Forest Hill edible orchard - Forest Hill is going back to its roots next month, to be transformed into an urban orchard. Forty-seven shops and businesses in Forest Hill and Honor Oak Park will join forces to create an avenue of 70 fruit trees – the Edible High Road – celebrating Forest Hill’s history and its current standing as a hub of community gardening. A trail map will lead visitors along the route lined with apple, cherry, pear and plum trees, ending in the Horniman Museum’s Gardens at the crest of the hill. Children taking part can also win gardening prizes. Organised by the Forest Hill Society, in partnership with Lewisham Gardens and Shannon’s Garden Centre, the Edible High Road opens on Saturday 18 May until Sunday 9 June, as part of the Chelsea Fringe Festival, the volunteer-run celebration of plants, gardens and landscapes.
• Platform One Youth Club – Tricia Howell from Platform One stated that Platform One is really an umbrella organisation providing a range of services for young people including NEET (not in education or full-time employment) projects. There has now been a change in trustees and the organisation is keen to play a wider role within the community. There is an open day on the 20^th July between 11am and 4pm, with lots of activities taking place including cooking, music and mentoring. Platform One is located at 2-4 Devonshire Road.

There being no other business the meeting was closed at 9.30pm. Details and information regarding the next assembly will be circulated nearer the time.       

No declarations of interest were made at the meeting.