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Telegraph Hill Assembly

Tuesday 19 July

7pm - 9pm

Barnes Wallis Community Centre

Meeting notes

1. / Welcome and introduction to the meeting. 23 people signed in
Councillor Joan Millbank welcomed everyone to the meeting and asked people to introduce themselves to someone they hadn’t met before.
2. / Come and LOOK event, Saturday 2 July – film and feedback
A short film about the event was made by Daniel Simpson from the Ministry of Youth.
Feedback from residents at the meeting was very positive.
3. / Safety, crime and anti-social behaviour priority Fitzroy Sterling from the Fire Safety Team gave a talk highlighting;
Ø  Smoke alarm free fitting is available to all
Ø  Double plugs are being taken out of circulation and people should only use 4 way extension leads.
Ø  Explained how to put out chip pan fire, with damp tea-towel but new advice to residents is to turn off the heat if possible, close the door and call 999.
Ø  The average response time for LFB is 5 minutes.
Ø  The LFB offer a free home fire safety service to everyone, whereby they will come and inspect your home and offer safety advice.
Ø  Don’t leave mobile phones on charge overnight or TV’s on standby
Liz Fowler from LBL Neighbourhood Community Safety Team gave an update;
The weekly surgery takes place in Honor Oak Housing Office, Wednesdays 10am – 1pm.
NEW surgery – Last Wednesday of every month from 9.30am at the TRA Room, Besson St.
Ø  The team want to get to know residents as much as they can as this increases community safety.
Ø  The team are considering holding an occasional late night surgery for those who cannot make it to the daytime one.
Ø  Several residents expressed concerns about how the police have dealt with crimes reported in the past. Liz Fowler invited them to speak to her individually after the meeting and she would forward issues /complaints onto Police.
Comment from residents included::
‘We miss the wardens, the police are not around enough’.
Telegraph Hill Safer Neighbourhood Team gave written update as they were unable to attend the meeting.
4. / New Cross Gate Trust Update
Darren Bird, Chair of the Trust gave an update on the progress of the new trust;
www.nxgtrust.org.uk
Ø  The trust is a registered charity ran by 15 board members including local residents and representatives of local interest groups e.g. school, health, local organisations, ward councillor.
Ø  The trust will take over the assets acquired by the New Deal for Communities NDC in March of this year, when the NDC finished and currently held in safekeeping by Lewisham Council. These assets include some housing, a restaurant and some offices
Ø  Once established the assets of the trust could generate up to £150,000 per year to spend on New Cross Gate (amount dependent on rental income from assets).
Ø  The income generated will be used for the Trust to meet its own running costs (e.g. 2 staff members, office & administration costs) and to undertake projects in the neighbourhood. The Trust wants to have some small grants programmes, offer match funding and support various other schemes yet to be developed that will help benefit local communities and local organisations.
Ø  The Besson St Healthy Living Centre (term used to describe the current empty site development in Besson Street) is high on their agenda; plans cannot be taken forward until a suitable developer is found (3 withdrew since 2008 due to recession) and LBL have recently appointed a project manager to undertake soft market testing i.e. test the viability of the scheme to provide housing, public space, community facilities and new surgery for the Queens Road GP practice.
The trust is different to the NDC, which was a government sponsored regeneration programme; it is concerned with improving local social, economic and general conditions about the whole New Cross Gate community not just the NDC area, and is now another organisation needing to work n partnership with other groups and agencies.
Q&A and comments included;
Ø  Would like to suggest temporary use for the Besson Street empty space.
Ø  Hope new trust will consult residents in more detail and in surrounding areas.
Ø  Many local people are still wondering where the NDC money were spent and
one resident suggested a full investigation; as the details on the Council
website were insufficient.
Ø  Please provide a Christmas tree in New Cross road.
Ø  Lots of surrounding residents angry about the new road layout.
Cllr Millbank asked residents to report any emerging highway and transport problems to Cllr Whittle as he is liaising with TfL on behalf of the Telegraph Hill councillors to get them attend to attend the next Local Assembly meeting.
5. / Assembly Fund Update
The meeting was reminded that the Assembly had agreed that the Locality and Mayors Fund (approx £41k) would be spend in a more strategic way this year through liaising with local groups and working up ideas together. There were 2 main priorities areas in the ward action plan are expenditure - youth and community activity. Cllr Millbank has met with the youth groups and will be meeting with the community groups to identify the areas and activities that would benefit from (additional) funding.
The coordinating group w ill be considering the allocation mechanism next week and bring forward recommendations for support at the next assembly meeting.
6. / Community Updates
New Cross People’s library - Bold Vision are now acting as the ‘incubator’ sheltering the community group under its charity while they worked up their business plan and negotiated with the Council over use of the building.
Hilton House Co-Op - July 21 opening has been delayed for a week due to electrical problems. The Co-op Manager had paid for a Plaque for Hilton House This is to commemorate those which were bombed at Hilton House in the war. The unveiling will now take place at a later date. Cllr Millbank applauded the Co-op for created 23 new jobs of which 20 were recruited from local residents.
Telegraph Hill Skate Park has received further funding and work is due to start in September.
Joint Ward Councillors and MP Surgery will be at the Honor Oak Community Centre on Saturday 23 July,11.00 – 12.30pm. This is in addition to the usual surgeries held in the ward.
Sandbourne Road Garden- event to be held on Saturday 30 July. Flyers on table.
No declarations of interest were made at this meeting