At a well-attended Ward Assembly meeting, held last night at the Beecroft Garden Primary School off Brockley Road, the Assembly unanimously approved the constitution for the new Crofton Park Neighbourhood Forum, paving the way for consultation as to what local residents would like to see in the Neighbourhood  Plan.

A copy of the constitution will be uploaded to the Crofton Park community website (www.croftonpark.com/) shortly.
 
The next Assembly will take place at 19:00 on Wednesday 9 October 2013, the venue is yet to be confirmed.

After a three-year campaign I have finally succeeded in getting waiting times in Brockley Road, Crofton Park rationalised to 30 minutes instead of 20 minutes/30 minutes. Now customers in local cafés will have longer to finish their meal or shoppers will have longer to shop.

Cllr Morrison

The next Crofton Park Assembly will take place at Beecroft Garden School, Brockley Road SE4 2BS on Wednesday 12 June at from 7–9pm. The meeting will be divided into two main parts, the first of which will focus on the new Neighbourhood Forum.

The full agenda is as follows:

19:00    Registration, tea and coffee
19:10    Welcome – Cllr Pauline Morrison

19:10–19:50
Crofton Park Neighbourhood Forum – discussion and approval of its constitution

19:50    Break – Refreshments and networking

20:00–21:00
Community updates:
* Annual Action Plan – Crofton Park Community Safety Managers
* Assembly Fund – Coordinating Group
* Crofton Park Community Carnival – Alyson Peberdy
* Community Garden, Marnock Road – Tony Rich
* CroftonPark.com – Ed Green
* Crofton Park Library – Cllr Pauline Morrison/Darren Taylor
* Crofton Park Safer Neighbourhood Ward Panel – Judith Seymour
* Police update – Acting Sergeant Rob Cheeseman
* Youth Forum 10,000 Hands – Simon Jones/Cllr Jackie Addison

21:00    Thanks and close

To find out more about the Crofton Park Assembly click here.

Replacement of all the street lamps in Crofton Park Ward is well under way. This is part of a four-year joint programme with Croydon Council to replace all the street lights in both boroughs. Residents had the opportunity to question the company who are doing this at the last Ward Assembly meeting in January but I have started to receive a stream of emails from local residents, once they receive their letters to inform them that work is about to start. There is information about the programme on the Council website but if you have any further concerns please email me and I will try to find the answers you need.

Cllr Addison

Cllr Jackie Addison has been re-elected as Chair of the Lewisham Community Police Consultative Group (LCPCG) with over 50 per cent of the vote. The LCPCG was established by Act of Parliament, along with similar groups in every London Borough, following the Scarman Report into the 1981 Brixton riots. The main purpose of these groups was to act as a conduit between the public and the police.

The LCPCG is grant funded by the Mayor of London’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), who have reduced our funding more than half over the last four years. Boris Johnson decided to abolish the organisation in his recent election manifesto and replace it with a Safer Neighbourhood Board. This was supposed to go out to public consultation in March but as yet nothing has emerged.

For more information about the Lewisham Community Police Consultative Group click here.

Many concerned residents have contacted me to ask about the proposed development at 437-439 Brockley Road. This web page provides an update with regard to this development.

You may know that two very similar applications – for a large, mixed retail and residential building up to four storeys in height, opposite the Brockley Jack – were turned down by Lewisham Planning Officers in November 2011 and May 2012. On 20 September 2011, I chaired a public meeting attended by the Planning Officer, the developers and their architect and by 73 local residents and business people to discuss the proposal.

Both applications were refused by Lewisham Council on the grounds of overdevelopment, poor urban design and lack of an acceptable servicing regime. The Council considered the proposals to be in conflict with elements of the London Plan (July 2011), the Local Development Framework – Core Strategy (June 2011) and the Unitary Development Plan (July 2004).

More detailed reasons for refusing the second application, which received 190 objections from local residents and businesses, were:

• The proposed development’s excessive bulk and scale, poor urban design and mix of commercial and residential floor space would result in an over-development of the site.
• Its bulk, scale, design and close proximity of the building to adjoining residential properties would be out of keeping with the street scheme and visually detrimental to Sevenoaks Road homes.
• The applicant did not demonstrate that the proposed retail unit could be adequately serviced without significant impact on adjoining residents, highway safety or bus service provision.
• The internal planning, mutual overlooking between units and poor overall size of most of the flats would provide a poor standard of accommodation.
  

Appeal and new application
The applicant is now appealing to the Planning Inspectorate for London against Lewisham Council’s decision to refuse the second planning application. At the same time, he is also submitting a new application to Lewisham Council.

This is a similar application to the previous two rejections, but with a smaller retail area.  Lewisham Planning have referred this to their Design Team for a design review. Full details of this new application (reference DC/13/82946/X) can be found online at http://tinyurl.com/ceugzky.

What can you do?

The old application
If you have any new comments to make against the second rejected application (reference  DC/12/79879/FT), go to http://tinyurl.com/d7krxko, where you’ll find all the relevant dates and the Case Officer’s details. Please note that all previous correspondence will be forwarded to the Planning Inspectorate by Lewisham Council – so there is no need to resubmit. The closing date for new comments is 2 May.

The current application – submit your views by Wednesday 1 May
Details of the new application can be found on Lewisham Council’s website at http://tinyurl.com/ceugzky where you can make your comments and register any objections. The closing date for objections is 1 May 2013.

Please contact me if you have any queries relating to this development.

Cllr Pauline Morrison
cllr_pauline.morrison@lewisham.gov.uk

Working with Prendergast Ladywell Fields College for the past three years I have wanted to organise a major youth engagement event and was finally able to achieve this aim last week when the Lewisham Community Police Consultative Group hosted a day conference for secondary school students. Entitled ‘10,000 Hands – Staying Safe’ The event, which was opened by  Lewisham Mayor, Steve  Bullock, and facilitated by students from Prendergast Ladywell Fields College, brought together students from every secondary school in Lewisham.

There were six workshops including Risks and Realities, Stop and Search, Sexual Violence, and City Safe and First Aid Training, as well as a marketplace event with stalls from 25 community groups and a panel event with The Borough Commander, the Young Mayor, Heidi Alexander MP. the Executive Director of Children and Young People, which includes Education, and Barry Mizen.

Cllr Addison

Read more about this event in the Lewisham Shopper.

The Crofton Park Ward Safer Neighbourhood Panel met at the beginning of the month to receive a report from Acting Sergeant Rob Cheeseman and set the policing priorities for the ward. The meeting was told that there had been a general increase in burglary throughout the Borough over the Christmas period. It had been particularly bad in neighbouring Brockley Ward and plain clothes operations there might have caused it to be displaced to our ward in January, resulting in a sharp increase in incidents. Most burglaries seem to be taking place during the day. Houses which have been converted into flats are the main target, as once the front door lock is slipped, the burglar
is free to kick-in flat doors out of view from the street. Other properties involved in burglaries were usually accessed from the rear.

Cllr Addison

I am Chair of the Lewisham Community Police Consultative Group (LCPCG), an independent forum where Lewisham’s communities can meet to discuss policing and community safety issues.

At the beginning of March we hosted a public consultation meeting as part of the Safer Lewisham Partnership’s Annual Strategic Assessment. Those attending were able to have face-to-face conversations with officers about the work already being done in the borough and to influence the content of this year’s Community Safety Action Plan. I represent the LCPCG on the Community Safety Partnership and will be able to present these findings when they meet at the end of March.

Cllr Addison

A systematic programme to replace all street lighting in Lewisham Borough has commenced in Crofton Park Ward. This is as part of a 25-year contract which is being undertaken by Skanska Infrastructure Services, a company operating in Lewisham and Croydon as 'Croydon and Lewisham Lighting Services Ltd'.

Over the first five years of the contract all of the Council's 42,000 lights and 8,000 signs will be upgraded.

The map shows the sequence of work in Lewisham Borough.

For further details and a list of FAQs, click here to view information on Lewisham Council's website.