Agenda and minutes

Cllr Maja Hilton, Chair of the Forest Hill Assembly welcomed everyone to the meeting.

Sam Kirk explained that Lewisham Council has launched a consultation on changes to waste and recycling services that would affect around 80,000 properties across the borough (all those that typically have collections from a wheelie bin).

Under the title Let’s Talk Rubbish! the Council is asking people to say what they think about potential changes to the service that could see:

·        separate collections of paper

·         the introduction of a food waste collection

·         a paid-for garden waste collection

·        changes to the frequency of some collections.

The Council has to make changes to comply with new regulations introduced on 1 January 2015 and to make sure it can meet a target of 50% of all waste either recycled, reused or composted by 2020 – failure to do so may mean big fines for the Council.   

She explained that Councillor Rachel Onikosi, Cabinet Member for the Public Realm, relayed the following message:

“We have done really well in Lewisham over the years to avoid sending waste to landfill. We sent just 0.3% to landfill last year saving millions of pounds in taxes and charges and avoiding the most environmentally damaging way of disposing of waste.

“But we could be recycling a lot more. Most of our waste – about 80% – is incinerated to generate electricity. But in the future it will save money if we are able to recycle more and it will be better for the environment.

“That’s why we are consulting on changes that will help us recycle and compost more and produce better quality materials that we could sell on for a good price.”

The consultation lasts until 18 October 2015.

Cllr Hilton explained that the Council are proposing changes to the way that the Council provides library services at Forest Hill, Manor House and Torridon Road libraries and we want your views.

She explained that while we will not be able to discuss this in detail today, we

 would like to draw your attention to the proposals for changes to the Library

 and Information Service.

The consultation meetings will take place on the following dates:

The consultation will close at midnight on 15 November 2015.

For more information and to complete a survey:

http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/myservices/libraries/Pages/Library-consultation-2015.aspx

Some members of the assembly expressed their concerns on the potential

changes to the Forest Hill library.

CllrBernards and Cllr Hilton said that they would support the views of the

Forest Hill residents and encouraged the assembly to attend the consultation

meeting on the 19^th October at Sydenham School and give their views.

A local trader explained that a campaign against the changes has been set up

 and to get involved go to:

https://www.change.org/p/lewisham-council-save-lewisham-libraries

Unfortunately PC Hill was called to an emergency and was unable to give an update.

·        SEE3 High Street Happenings

·        Forest hill Fashion Week 2016

·        Girls Football & Health Project

·        Friends of Albion Millennium Green Wildlife Pond

·        Free Film Festival

·        Scouts Project

                        Projects put to vote by the assembly.

·        SEE3 High Street Happenings

This project would ensure that there is a Christmas carol event as a focal point of Forest Hill Town Centre and provide entertainment/activities as part of the SEE3/Sydenham Arts High Street Happening programme. It would also  

support other activities in the town centre including Easter, Halloween, Sydenham Arts Festival and other events as part of Sydenham Arts.

This project gained a majority vote (via a show of hands) to receive £2,500 funding by the assembly.

·        Forest hill Fashion Week 2016

Forest Hill Fashion Week is a family friendly, inclusive, community festival with something to offer for people of all ages – celebrating South East London’s wonderful creative buzz.

It is a continuation of the Forest Hill Fashion Week that started in 2013 as part of the SEE3 pop up shops programme in Forest Hill – LoveUrLook and SEE Below.  The programme ties in with London Fashion Week and ran from 20 – 25 September 2013, 18 – 21 September 2014 and is running from 24 – 27 September this year – attached is the flyer.  Past funding has been from SEE3 and the Mayor of London’s Summer of High Streets.  The support of funding from Forest Hill Assembly would enable the community festival to have continuity and advance preparation for a bigger and better programme.

The 2015 theme is ‘Creativity, Community and Culture’ - three things that

make Forest Hill such a vibrant and unique part of London. The catwalk event will close

with a special show from Pavement2catwalk, focused on homelessness, addiction, disability, mental health and the elderly.

Web site – www.fhfw.co.uk 

Twitter - @fhfashionSE23 

Facebook – ForestHillFashion

This project gained a majority vote (via a show of hands) to receive £2,500 funding by the assembly.

·        Girls Football & Health Project

This project encourages young girls in the ward to be more active and exercise regularly by taking part in our girl’s football project. We will be offering girls FREE coaching via a 3 stage project. We will be challenging obesity figures and encouraging healthy lifestyles.

The project will run across 3 different stages.

Stage 1- To run extra curricula taster sessions to be held in 4 primary schools within Forest Hill ward targeting Years 4 & 5. Each school to receive 4 sessions

Stage 2 – To organise a schools tournament, the schools benefitting from the taster session will be invited to take part in a tournament to put their new skills into practice.

Finally for Stage 3 – To invite girls to attend 6 Community coaching sessions at our Club FREE of charge, girls will also receive a free Forest Hill Ward / Club t-shirt to encourage them to join our club structure and exercise and be active more regularly, as well as advertising Forest Hill Ward.

This project gained a majority vote (via a show of hands) to receive £2,300 funding by the assembly.

·        Friends of Albion Millennium Green Wildlife Pond

Feedback forms - agenda items next meeting

·        Feedback forms – agenda items next meeting

Cllr Hilton 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.

·        Forest Hill Society has their AGM on Thursday 22^nd October

·        Consultation on a CPZ in Forest Hill

During November and December 2015, the council intend to carry out consultation with residents and businesses in the study area where streets are currently uncontrolled and may be suffering from parking problems.

When proposing a new CPZ, there is a need to firmly establish the areas that are most affected by parking pressure.  Getting the consultation area right is a fine balance, consulting too large an area (i.e. asking people we know don’t have a parking problem) is a waste of the available budget. Consulting too small runs the risk that people around the edge feel they are excluded.

Finding an edge isn’t straightforward.  Therefore CPZ consultations will typically cover a broad area that often extends beyond the limits of what officers might consider as the streets suffering from the highest levels of parking stress. A broad area attempts to deal with the challenge of ‘getting the balance right’ mentioned in the previous paragraph.

It is only after all the data (consultation results + parking occupancy figures) has been analysed that a true picture of what is happening and resident’s options can be understood. The data is analysed on a street-by-street basis, but a recommended zone will also consider the overall results across the recommended area.   The analysis usually results in recommendations for a zone to be implemented in a smaller number of streets than were originally included in the original consultation.

As well as asking the primary question “Do you want parking controls to be introduced in your street?”, It is important that we ask the secondary question “ If you answered “No” or “Undecided” to a parking zone but a neighbouring street was in favour of a zone, would you change your mind? (i.e. to avoid the possibility of parking displacing from those streets onto yours?)”. This is an important question if you don’t want a CPZ, as a parking zone in the street next to yours is likely to increase the demand for space in your street.

It’s important to consider this is only a consultation and that no decision has been taken to implement a CPZ.

Another key question will be whether you want the zone to operate for the whole day, which offers more protection, or just part of the day (usually 2 hours), which only deters commuters.

The area that will be consulted is shown below:

Timescales:

Pre-consultation Development & Preparation:      7^th September – 6^th November

Public Consultation:                                                  9^th November – 4^th December

Consultation Analysis and Reports:                        7^th December – 1^st March

Implementation will take place during 2016/17 and is dependent on the outcome and scale of any proposed area

·        Lewisham Local Community Contributor Card

Lewisham Local 'Community Contributor Card’ will enable people to get discounts at local independent traders and small businesses who wish to support the efforts of those contributing their time for the benefit of the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.