Agenda and draft minutes

The Chair welcomed everyone and invited them to briefly introduce themselves. 

Gemma King, Cost of Living Programme Manager, spoke on how the council is working with partners in the community to support our residents through the cost of living crisis.  She highlighted:

• Working with advice services to bring in £1.5 million through successful benefit applications for Pension Credit. This is “gateway” benefit which enables people to claim various other forms of support.
• Working with Food Justice projects – the council has supported 19 food projects around the borough, and a number of Holidays and Food projects in schools.
• In response to rising fuel poverty, coordinating and promoting 50 Warm Welcome spaces of which 25 received council funding. These provide free of charge social space as well as warmth, meeting the need for connection.
• Essential goods grants in partnership with LewishamLocal
• A programme of direct help plus advice and signposting is in the pipeline

Jorja-May Pitt, Head of Services, Citizens Advice Lewisham (CAL), spoke about the outreach Advice Hubs that CAL are developing across the borough.  These will also be signposted by the Warm Hubs.  An Advice Hub is being delivered in Perry Rise Baptist Church.  CAL are focussed on income maximisation, meaning everyone who approaches them for help will be supported in a range of ways including looking at housing costs and benefits, heating and energy, debt reduction and management etc.

More information is available on our website: https://lewisham.gov.uk/myservices/cost-of-living

Lewisham Young Mayor – Gentai Gen-One
Gentai spoke about the role of the Young Mayor and his Advisors.  He is the 18^th YoungMayor, and came to the role with a manifesto to increase opportunities including safe meeting spaces and a voice for young people (YP) in Lewisham.  The Young Mayor has a budget of £25,000 per year, and any young person aged 11 – 17 can join the Young Mayor’s Advisors.  Gentai and his team have initiatiied skating and basketball events, which were fully booked, and have worked on setting up a YP radio station, and professional support to start up new businesses.

Gentai’s presentation was warmly welcomed by participants, and he was invited to speak with Chris Brown about a project on Knowing your Rights for young people, and to Gemma King about work to make the Lewisham Warm Welcomes appropriate for young people.

More information about the Young Mayor and Young Mayor’s Advisors from: katy.brown@lewisham.gov.uk

Young Lewisham Project (YLP)

YLP is a very well-established project working across Lewisham and based in Perry Vale. The project works with young people whose needs are not well-met by the mainstream school “system”. It aims to provide a safe space where people can realise their potential.  It serves YP aged 11 – 18 and not in school (daytimes) and is open access for YP in the evenings (check website for details).  Roy from YLP spoke about the projects and the improvements to the gym and bike workshop that were able to be carried out with the help of the Mayor’s Charity.  The funding will enable them to increase their cycling offer including learn to ride, road knowledge, velodrome, mountain-biking. They are keen to establish a Lewisham BMX centre.  If you are interested in supporting YLP or the BMX project idea, please contact laura.luckhurst@lewisham.gov.uk to be put in touch or visit https://www.younglewishamproject.com/

MUD project

Two members of MUD project at Sydenham Garden spoke about the project.  It is open to young people aged 18 – 25 living in Lewisham borough. The group focusses on supporting well-being through use of open spaces, growing, and crafts.  It has carried out projects in partnership with Tate museum and the Garden Museum, workshop events with Tate Lates in April 2023.  They put on film screenings as a “quiet” introduction to the group. Some of their events are open to all ages e.g. the Tate Lates.  Indoor space is used during the winter months in the Hub at the Sydenham Garden De Freyne site.

The Chair and participants warmly thanked all three presenters for sharing their information.

What’s your vision for Perry Vale in 2030 and beyond?

Cllr James Walsh spoke about the Lewisham 2030 consultation, which is about a joint vision for how all Lewisham’s Partnership bodies – e.g. fire, police, Godsmiths, Health – will work together going forward.  Participants were warmly encouraged to take part in the consultation by putting their ideas on the flipcharts around the room, filling in the survey online using the cards on their seats or taking a hard copy survey from the information desk.

The police sent apologies for this meeting.  A written update was available from the sign-in desk, and is reproduced here:

Lost/Stolen Vehicles – As a ward team (including Forest Hill and Crofton Park), we have now recovered 79 vehicles which were found in and around our wards. Due to the volume of vehicles being taken around the South East, Sergeant Munday who is the vehicles point of contact for the borough has now made it mandatory for SNT to go to the address of where the vehicle was taken and carry out extensive CCTV checks in the surrounding area. By doing this we hope to be able to catch the suspects that have been taking the vehicles rather than just the vehicle themselves.

Drugs – As part of three positive stop searches which all took place on Dacres Road since August, one person was issued with a community resolution order for possession of cannabis, one person was arrested for possession of cannabis and another person was arrested for possession with intent to supply Class B (cannabis).

In another incident, an arrest was made for drug drive recently thanks to information received from residents in Perry Vale.

If any person wants more clarity/guidance on stop searches, I put a “Know Your Rights” in relation to these on the last newsletter. If you want a copy of this newsletter or want to be added to our mailing list to receive the newsletter in the future then please email SNT-.PerryVale@met.co.uk

Hindsleys Place – Some of you may be aware of the attack that took place on Hindsleys Place recently. The suspect was outstanding but they have since been arrested.

Coffee with a Cop – Sergeant Munday has started up this initiative again. We have hosted two so far and have thoroughly enjoyed them. We will aim to host one a month between October and December so keep an eye out for future dates.

Ward Panel Meeting – The next ward panel meeting for Perry Vale is taking place on Thursday 5^th October at St George’s Church at 7pm. This meeting allows residents to meet with the Perry Vale SNT and have an open discussion/raise concerns about what’s happening in the area. If you are interested then please come along and join us. We hope to see you there.

This item was placed on the agenda in response to concerns raised at previous assemblies and via a petition from local residents regarding the junction of Woolstone Roads with Houston and Cranston. 

Darren Gotch, Principal Engineer, explained the constraints that his team are working under, having lost 23 officers to redundancy over the last few years.  One consequence of this is significantly less capacity for site visits, and greater reliance on statistical data in assessing road safety risks.

The council has received a petition asking for the Woolstone, Houston/Cranston Junction to be reviewed for safety.  The data shows only 4 reported personal injury incidents over the last 3 years.  Collisions without reported injury does not register in the data. Speeding at the junction appears to be low – speeds are around 22 mph which although over the 20 mph limit is not seen as high risk.

There are challenges to finding solutions.  A small Low Traffic Neighbourhood could be considered, however Darren noted that making any road one-way can increase speeds.

Suggestions from the floor included:

• Site visits and other methods as data may not show whole picture
• Combining Sustainable streets with Healthy Neighbourhood approaches
• Looking at the Safer Routes to School policies

Darren agreed that all of the above could be valid and that he would carry out a site visit at the location to assess the issues, and report back to a future assembly.  His team are open to a range of responses. 

John Doherty informed the meeting that Forest Hill Society has allied itself with HACAN (Heathrow Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise) East, which is a campaign group of people affected by noise from both Heathrow and London City Airport.  HACAN East are inviting people to donate via HACAN East’s crowdfund page to support their legal costs.

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/hacan-east-635

To date HACAN East has raised just under £9k towards our estimated total of £15k of costs for our engagement at the Public Inquiry.  They are concerned that London City Airport is applying to increase flights and extend flights into the weekends.

Participants were asked to complete feedback sheets either online using the QR code on their agendas, or in hard copy available from the information and sign-in desk.

Meeting closed at 8.35 pm

Date of next meeting: 5 December 2023 Online