Agenda and minutes

Cllr Paul Upex, Chair of the Forest Hill Assembly welcomed everyone to the meeting. He

then introduced Cllr Peter Bernards and Cllr Maja Hilton

Cllr Upex introduced Peter Brierley to talk about the Safe Haven scheme, with the view of

possibly bringing it into in the Forest Hill area.

Lewisham Citizens programme consists of 12 member organisations made up of

churches, mosques, schools and GP practise based across Lewisham.

They work within communities around local issues including the Living Wage campaign,

Safety and crime, and housing.

He talked about their work following the Jimmy Mizen tragedy, a 16 year old boy who was

murdered in a bakery in Lee. Following the incident, teams of young people got together

across London to talk to shop keepers and ask them whether they would they work to

make their local area safer, would they report 100% of crime and would they allow their

shops to be places of safety. Through this work the City Safe campaign was born.

Cllr Upex asked the assembly to show support for the idea of bringing this project into

Forest Hill and working with young people, the Forest Hill Safer Neighbourhood team,

local businesses and residents. The majority of the assembly raised their hand

in support of this idea.

For further information on the Lewisham Citizens/ Citizens UK project contact:

Mobile 07886444311

Peter.Brierley@citizensuk.org

Madeleine Jeffery, with colleague Sukhi Nijjar gave the presentation,

‘Responding to the problem of homelessness in the Borough- Hamilton Lodge &

Canonbie Road, ’ which highlighted the housing crisis in Lewisham and across London.

The impact is that all local authorities have increasing numbers in B&B and this is

 witnessed in Lewisham where we have increased our B&B numbers from the target of 50

 to currently 575 households. These consist of mostly families and mainly outside of

 Lewisham.

If you would like further information on this subject email:

Madeleine.jeffery@lewisham.gov.uk

Sukhi.nijjar@lewisham.gov.uk

Martin Hyde gave the presentation, ‘Parks and Open Spaces Difficult times!’

He highlighted that their service (Green Scene) has experienced  £1.5 million cuts since

2010/11

Impact of this includes:

·        Park keeper service  reduced by 50% to a part time shared service.  Each keeper will service 2 parks.

·        Over a 3-year period the parks improvement budget, used for repairs including footpath resurfacing, has been cut to zero.

·        Changes to grounds maintenance regimes have included changes to grassland management, shrub bed etc.

·        Over the last 4 years one Green Scene monitoring officer has not been replaced and a management support officer has been made redundant

Martin highlighted where Ward assemblies could help in the following areas:

·        Participate in wider community consultation

·        Consider future plans, projects and schemes in local parks

·        Liaise with the Officers and the Lewisham Parks Forum to develop community involvement initiatives and explore external funding opportunities.

He asked if anyone would be interested , or knows anyone who would be interested in

setting up a Friends group in Forest Hill to become part of the Lewisham Parks Forum.

If anyone is interested contact maya.onyett@lewisham.gov.uk

Simon Moss and David Pope gave the presentation; ‘ Dartmouth Road Public Realm Enhancements – Feasibility Design. This covers the area from Forest Hill station to Forest Hill pools

The key scheme objectives are:

·        Reduce speed to 20mph

·        Manage traffic & parking

·        Support local economy

·        Enhance environment

·        Improve sense of arrival in Forest Hill

·        Increase pedestrian activity

Key timelines are:

·        Collate comments and finalise Concept Design Apr 15

·        Detailed design phase Apr 15 - Dec 15, this will include further public consultation

·        Tender Works Dec 15 - Feb 16

·         Start on site March 2016

For further information or to make comments email:

transport@lewisham.gov.uk

·        Re-connect @ Platform 1- Patricia Howell

·        Sydenham Arts Festival Forest Hill activities – Jonathan Kaufman

·        Friends of Devonshire Road Nature Reserve- Jacob Twyford

·        Sydenham School  - short DVD

Re-connect @ Platform 1- Patricia Howell

Patricia explained that the essence of the Re-Connect programme at Platform 1 is to ‘ raise aspirations’ and ‘change behaviour’ by re-connecting the participant to understanding the link between their values, emotions and actions, using life events to help young people to understand ‘why they do what they do’. Areas of change are explored through therapeutic art, drama/ group discussion workshops and movies.

Feedback for the young people attending the programme included:

(f) aged 14

I come here to help build my self-confidence, I wanted help to be more respectable, I like the rope exercise because it helped me to reveal more about myself. I have now become more confident. I would like to do a swimathon for charity one day and to achieve this I need to believe in myself

The 3 best things about the workers are that they understand my position, they can relate to me, they believe in me and I like being able to unwind from the week.

(f) aged 15

Making more friends and learning to keep friends. When I first came to the group they gave me confidence to talk to people I don’t know. I like just coming having freedom with my friend and not staying home. My best things is coming, meeting people and having fun. I would like to be the next Young Mayor.

(f) age not known

It feels like a family and is a place where I can express my feelings.

(m) age not known

Platform 1 has helped me with my people skills, I feel less alone and feel good about myself.

(m) aged 12

To learn to cook and be more social with the world, I hope it would achieve happiness and get better at talking to people and making them laugh and gain the ability to ask questions and ask for help. What I like doing is learning to make smoothies and cooking. I don’t like spending too much time on the computers because it stops you from socializing. Well it really made me think that I can talk to people more and ask questions, to ask how things happen and why. I have got the help I hoped to get and what’s changed is I’ve become more talkative than I thought.

Next I want to achieve making movies and talking out loud to lots of people. My best things is being able to talk to them about anything, they can help you to do more activities and be motivated to do fun stuff when your down. They teach you things you thought you could never do.

Sydenham Arts Ltd - Forest Hill activities – Jonathan Kaufman

Jonathan (Director) explained that the Sydenham Arts Festival is for Forest

 Hill and thanked the assembly for funding them.

The Summer Festival will be from 4th – 12th July.  They are aiming to have 23

out of the 65 events in the Forest Hill area and hopes to see  ...  view the full minutes text for item 41.

·        Forest Hill School’s Young Citizens Programme – Sasha Leacock

Forest Hill School’s Young Citizens Programme – Sasha Leacock

Last November, through Awards For All funding and L&Q match funding, Forest Hill School launched a new social action Initiative – the Young Citizen’s Programme – which aims to encourage young people to become more active citizen’s, devising projects, campaigns that address local needs.  Throughout the autumn term 240 Year 9 students (13-14 year olds) have been working with specialist Facilitators, researching local priorities and coming up with innovative ideas for projects.  

Cllr Upex and local councillors from Perry Vale and Sydenham have been involved as well as Young Advisers from Lewisham Young Mayor’s Office.

On 15^th January, each class presented a pitch of their class idea in front of a panel. One winning project, ComFest ( name may be changed at a later date) was selected for delivery direct in the community during the Spring and/or Summer terms. This project is based on delivering a festival or series of events connecting community elders and young people together through music, art workshops and performances. They are looking to make local partnerships and work with groups including the Sydenham Arts.

The YCP not only develops students skills (e.g. research, entrepreneurism, communication/presentation, creative thinking, problem solving, project management) and sense of philanthropy, but it also promotes social interaction and action, encouraging young people to work with their wider community (across the ages) for the benefit of all.

For more information email:

cpa@foresthillschool.co.uk

• Feedback forms – agenda items next meeting

Cllr Upex highlighted the importance of completing the feedback forms and invited members to join the coordinating group which plans the assembly and discusses local issues and updates . If you would like to join contact maya.onyett@lewisham.gov.uk for further information.

Cllr Upex  thanked everyone for attending.

The next assembly will take place on Tuesday 9 June, 7 – 9pm

No declarations of interest were made at the meeting.