Agenda and draft minutes

PLEASE NOTE VOTING WILL END AT 8.00 PM PROMPT

Thirteen organisations had stalls in the Funding marketplace.  The applications put forward by the Coordinating Group to the Assembly represented £17,198.00 of funding requested.  £15,500 was available.  Approx. 100 people attended the assembly.  Voting was from 7.00 – 8.00 pm with people asked to vote for at least 6 projects, and results were announced at the end of the meeting.

Councillor Walsh sent apologies for late attendance due to a conflicting council appointment.

Local poets Karen Small and Juliet Ray from Inspired Word Collective performed live poetry to celebrate Black History Month and the 40th Anniversary of the Race Relations Act.  The poetry was very well received and inspired some appreciative audience participation.

Friends of Mountsfield Park – Rose Wheeler

Lewisham Irish Centre Youth Club – Emma Jane Boyd

Lewisham Youth Theatre – Helen Stanley (film)

St. Dunstan’s Enterprises – Gavin Halil

Lewisham Asian Elders – S. Kadambi

a)         Friends of Mountsfield Park – Rose Wheeler reported that the funding awarded by the Assembly in 2015 enabled them to attract a further £17,000 for a fitness trail in the park, which was being very well used.  They also had funding for a community noticeboard and encouraged all local community groups to use this facility to advertise their events and activities.

b)         Lewisham Irish Centre Youth Club – Emma Jane Boyd fed back that the project had received £2,000 to expand and include a senior Youth Club, with a dedicated youth worker.  The club had served an average 32 children each session and also provided two summer programmes involving arts and sport .  Lewisham Irish Centre is now committed to delivering a permanent youth club and reaches 6 secondary schools around the borough.  They are urgently seeking a male youth leader.  Cllr Klier confirmed that she had observed a significant increase in activity around the youth club.

c)         Lewisham Youth Theatre – Helen Stanley showed a film made by young people showing how they had benefited from the project.  She explained that the Rushey Green grant had enabled them to gain match funding, resulting in a greater variety of activities.  The young people involved had met 20 YP from Milan, and also worked with students from Jamaica.   They took their production “Hip Hop Shakespeare” on tour and made many positive connections.

d)         St. Dunstan’s Enterprises – Gavin Halil gave a presentation explaining how the funds were used to support a programme of football coaching for young girls, involving a total of 159 attendances from an average of 23 girls per session from 7 local primary schools.  Some of the girls may go on to represent their borough, and there has been an on-going partnership with Dalmain athletic developed.

e)         Lewisham Asian Elders – S. Kadambi reported that the project meets weekly with sessions on subjects such as healthy eating and taking exercise.  They had linked up with a project in East London and also provided information to the families of Asian Elders to enable them to support their older relative better and increase the resilience of the whole family.

SNT had been invited, however no officer was available to report on this occasion.

Give Me Back My Broken Night - Wednesday 9 - Friday 11 November, 6.30pm & 8.30pm An interactive planning walk event from Deptford Lounge.

Lewisham Pensioners Forum reported on their campaigns on behalf of older people, and around the consultation on Lewisham Hospital.  They have held a festival for the last 10 years and have also been active in planting trees around the borough.

A Xmas fair will be held on 10th December in the Broadway Theatre.

7.         Question and Answer opportunity

As there was no report from SNT this time, councillors invited the community to ask any questions.

Q: Will future planning proposals for Catford Town Centre address the traffic issues?

A: We are working with TFL on this and intend to give them a deadline to respond to proposals.  We are looking at an option to take the main traffic behind Laurence House (through what is currently the car park).

Q: Can we have an update on the artist’s hub?

A: We are looking at possible uses of the Old Town Hall.  Some new tenants have started moving in.

Q: Barratts have removed some trees between Catford and Catford Bridge stations.  How did they receive permission for this?

A: Councillors will look into this and report back.

Q: Why is there no pantomime at the Broadway theatre this year?

A: Councillors agreed to look into this.

Q: We have a lot of flytipping locally, can we have CCTV to help prevent this?

A: Unfortunately it is too expensive to install cameras in all locations where flytipping is a problem.  Over time the council aims to use good street design to eliminate the opportunities for flytipping, fopr example with gates, fencing etc. You are also recommended to use the apps such as Fix My Street to report flytipping quickly which helps to reduce the incidence.  Councillors are working closely with Cllr Rachel Onikosi who is doing work on flytipping issues.

A total of 570 votes were cast. The funded projects were (in order of number of votes):

St. Dunstan’s Enterprises Girls Football project received 25 votes and was unable to be funded on this occasion.

Attendees were asked to complete their feedback forms.

The meeting closed at 9.00 pm