Lorries on the Waites houses redevelopment still seem to be going the wrong way on Priory Rd, which could be very dangerous, especiallly for cyclists. We have just got the council's surveyors to talk again to the lead contractor Wilmott Dixon, who say they are putting further measures in place to prevent this happening.
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Sunday, 27 February 2011
Friday, 25 February 2011
Our newly-renamed South Hampstead Conservation Area!
On Monday 28th Feb, Camden's Cabinet Councillor for the Environment will be formally approving the Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy review. This follows a lot of work and extensive consultation. It's an excellent document that is well worth a good read, especially for this interested in local architecture and history. It should certainly improve the local authority's ability to manage this conservation area, which sadly as we know is on English Heritage's "conservation areas at risk" register. Three other points:
The consultation response strongly favoured a change of name for the conservation area (not the ward) from Swiss Cottage to South Hampstead, and this change is happening.
There was a comment about extending to include St Mary's Church, given the importance of local views. In fact the church is in the neighbouring Priory Rd conservation area, but the council certainly needs to make sure there is a holistic approach across conservation areas.
Finally, special thanks to all those in the residents group CRASH who contributed a great deal to this process, and many of their points are reflected in the final document being approved on Monday.
The consultation response strongly favoured a change of name for the conservation area (not the ward) from Swiss Cottage to South Hampstead, and this change is happening.
There was a comment about extending to include St Mary's Church, given the importance of local views. In fact the church is in the neighbouring Priory Rd conservation area, but the council certainly needs to make sure there is a holistic approach across conservation areas.
Finally, special thanks to all those in the residents group CRASH who contributed a great deal to this process, and many of their points are reflected in the final document being approved on Monday.
Thursday, 24 February 2011
Feedback from Safer Neighbourhoods meeting
Roger Freeman was at Tuesday's Swiss Cottage Safer Neighbourhood Meeting.
It started with a presentation from the local Crime Prevention Officer who reminded us that you can get a free security check for your home by calling 0208 733 6605; also that the over 60's one can have free security equipment-phone 0845 351 0642. Given the current financial climate these programmes may well cease so if this is something that interests you, you may want to do it sooner than later.
The importance of securing the backs of houses(and indeed garden sheds) was stressed; indeed over the winter months there have been problems with people gaining access to the open space in the Fairhazel,Priory,Compayne, Broadhurst axis and entering houses from the back. 6 arrests for burglary have been made recently in the local area.
The meeting agreed that the team should concentrate on anti social behaviour(including bicycle riding on pavements); residential burglary and vehicle crime.
It started with a presentation from the local Crime Prevention Officer who reminded us that you can get a free security check for your home by calling 0208 733 6605; also that the over 60's one can have free security equipment-phone 0845 351 0642. Given the current financial climate these programmes may well cease so if this is something that interests you, you may want to do it sooner than later.
The importance of securing the backs of houses(and indeed garden sheds) was stressed; indeed over the winter months there have been problems with people gaining access to the open space in the Fairhazel,Priory,Compayne, Broadhurst axis and entering houses from the back. 6 arrests for burglary have been made recently in the local area.
The meeting agreed that the team should concentrate on anti social behaviour(including bicycle riding on pavements); residential burglary and vehicle crime.
Sunday, 20 February 2011
National Census on March 27th
The Census takes place on March 27th. Participation is required by law. The census is important for the way we take decisions over the coming decade on the whole range of local and central government services. Last time in 2001 Camden had the 7th lowest response of any local authority in the country (23% of households didn’t respond), which isn’t great but reflects the nature of our population (most of the other low-response councils are in central London). Groups with typically lower than average response include students, young men, ethnic minorities. The publicity campaign starts on the 28th February, and Camden staff are working closely with the Office of National Statistics to get as high as possible a response from Camden this time.
Sunday, 6 February 2011
Libraries and the Council budget
This post is a personal view from Cllr Andrew Marshall.
I fully understand local people’s frustrations about the threats to our library service – as a councillor I voted in 2000 to keep the three threatened libraries open.
In terms of the possibility of community groups running libraries, we certainly all need to understand as much as possible and as soon as possible about the feasibility of this.
But in terms of how much taxpayers’ money we can afford to go into Camden’s libraries in future, I can’t help feeling that CPLUG and others are perhaps focused to some extent on the wrong things. There’s simply no point in looking at the libraries budget in isolation, rather than at the council budget as a whole. Since councils of all political hues – from Conservative-run Hammersmith & Fulham to Labour-LibDem-run Wirral – are closing libraries, it is surely unlikely that there some unique problem in the management of Camden libraries that can be uncovered as the answer to our prayers. Issues like whether fines are being paid of course have their place, but are simply not central in the context of the scale of the council’s budget.
I really urge everyone such as CPLUG with a keen interest in local services to read the budget papers that went to the council cabinet at the beginning of December, in order to get a sense of the scale of the challenge and the breadth and depth of the cuts in areas such as elderly services, child social work and voluntary sector funding.
The idea has been floated that cuts might not have to made in 2013/4 as the economic situation might have changed and the council tax could be raised. I’m afraid if you read the council budget papers it’s pretty clear how far from reality this view is. Britain has a huge structural deficit – it needs economic growth first and foremost to help repay it. You can’t spend the same money twice. Moreover the scale of council tax increase needed would be in my view completely unacceptable to local residents, many on fixed incomes – the leverage inherent in the current local government finance system does not make this at all feasible, even if desired.
I was struck in November that one member of the Heath Library friends group committee told the Ham and High:
“I’ve been told the amount spent on libraries in general is minimal compared to what is spent in other areas. Is it worth the small saving for such a huge upset?”
Well, the council budget is publicly available, so she and others can easily see whether libraries spending is indeed minimal. As for the huge upset, virtually every area where there will be cuts is seeing a huge upset. The point is that if you need to make cuts on this scale, you need to make savings virtually everywhere. You can’t afford to ringfence much from savings, since that just requires even greater savings elsewhere. I’ve not heard either local groups or the local media coming up with any other significant alternative savings – I don’t necessarily expect them to, but it’s important to grasp the context in which councillors are setting the budget as a whole. And while of course there is always scope for further efficiencies, it’s simply not credible to think that £86m can be found in this way.
I profoundly wish that Britain – and thus our local authorities – was not in the fiscal position it is in. But it is.
I fully understand local people’s frustrations about the threats to our library service – as a councillor I voted in 2000 to keep the three threatened libraries open.
In terms of the possibility of community groups running libraries, we certainly all need to understand as much as possible and as soon as possible about the feasibility of this.
But in terms of how much taxpayers’ money we can afford to go into Camden’s libraries in future, I can’t help feeling that CPLUG and others are perhaps focused to some extent on the wrong things. There’s simply no point in looking at the libraries budget in isolation, rather than at the council budget as a whole. Since councils of all political hues – from Conservative-run Hammersmith & Fulham to Labour-LibDem-run Wirral – are closing libraries, it is surely unlikely that there some unique problem in the management of Camden libraries that can be uncovered as the answer to our prayers. Issues like whether fines are being paid of course have their place, but are simply not central in the context of the scale of the council’s budget.
I really urge everyone such as CPLUG with a keen interest in local services to read the budget papers that went to the council cabinet at the beginning of December, in order to get a sense of the scale of the challenge and the breadth and depth of the cuts in areas such as elderly services, child social work and voluntary sector funding.
The idea has been floated that cuts might not have to made in 2013/4 as the economic situation might have changed and the council tax could be raised. I’m afraid if you read the council budget papers it’s pretty clear how far from reality this view is. Britain has a huge structural deficit – it needs economic growth first and foremost to help repay it. You can’t spend the same money twice. Moreover the scale of council tax increase needed would be in my view completely unacceptable to local residents, many on fixed incomes – the leverage inherent in the current local government finance system does not make this at all feasible, even if desired.
I was struck in November that one member of the Heath Library friends group committee told the Ham and High:
“I’ve been told the amount spent on libraries in general is minimal compared to what is spent in other areas. Is it worth the small saving for such a huge upset?”
Well, the council budget is publicly available, so she and others can easily see whether libraries spending is indeed minimal. As for the huge upset, virtually every area where there will be cuts is seeing a huge upset. The point is that if you need to make cuts on this scale, you need to make savings virtually everywhere. You can’t afford to ringfence much from savings, since that just requires even greater savings elsewhere. I’ve not heard either local groups or the local media coming up with any other significant alternative savings – I don’t necessarily expect them to, but it’s important to grasp the context in which councillors are setting the budget as a whole. And while of course there is always scope for further efficiencies, it’s simply not credible to think that £86m can be found in this way.
I profoundly wish that Britain – and thus our local authorities – was not in the fiscal position it is in. But it is.
Saturday, 5 February 2011
Street sweeping times and costs
At our recent residents area group meeting for Swiss Cottage, a number of issues around rubbish collection, recycling and street sweeping came up. One specific one was around concerns about sweeping at weekends and late at night, with potential extra costs for the local authority at a time when money is very tight. We've got a very helpful response from the Camden Environment Dept, which is worth seeing in full:
"We are currently working with our contractor Veolia on the first phase of a three year programme of street cleansing efficiencies that will reduce the amount of street cleansing that we offer, and that this first phase does concentrate on reductions in evening and weekend cleansing work carried out within the borough. Whilst we need to maintain acceptable standards of cleanliness we have identified a number of areas that will get a reduced level of late afternoon, evening and weekend sweeping. This will lead to savings in overtime costs by our contractors and allow a reduction in our overall street cleansing costs in 2010/11.
The use of overtime payments to cover out of hours working has reduced over the period of the Veolia contract, although some street cleansing staff have retained this provision within their terms and conditions of employment. Whilst shift working operated by our contractors has minimised the impact of overtime costs, the planned changes will further reduce this requirement. This remains an area of focus for the work we are doing with Veolia to further reduce costs.
We will be looking at further savings and efficiencies from our waste and cleansing services throughout 2010/11 to deliver additional savings over the next three years. As part of this we will be looking at greater engagement with residents, businesses and visitors to the borough on the issues of reducing littering – both as encouragement but ultimately as enforcement where required."
"We are currently working with our contractor Veolia on the first phase of a three year programme of street cleansing efficiencies that will reduce the amount of street cleansing that we offer, and that this first phase does concentrate on reductions in evening and weekend cleansing work carried out within the borough. Whilst we need to maintain acceptable standards of cleanliness we have identified a number of areas that will get a reduced level of late afternoon, evening and weekend sweeping. This will lead to savings in overtime costs by our contractors and allow a reduction in our overall street cleansing costs in 2010/11.
The use of overtime payments to cover out of hours working has reduced over the period of the Veolia contract, although some street cleansing staff have retained this provision within their terms and conditions of employment. Whilst shift working operated by our contractors has minimised the impact of overtime costs, the planned changes will further reduce this requirement. This remains an area of focus for the work we are doing with Veolia to further reduce costs.
We will be looking at further savings and efficiencies from our waste and cleansing services throughout 2010/11 to deliver additional savings over the next three years. As part of this we will be looking at greater engagement with residents, businesses and visitors to the borough on the issues of reducing littering – both as encouragement but ultimately as enforcement where required."
Thursday, 3 February 2011
Legacy nightclub application to extend licensing hours
We have just heard that The Legacy nightclub has applied for a license alteration to extend its opening hours. They are not requesting any change for the hours on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. They are applying to open till Midnight on Sunday(current 22.30) and Monday(currently they have no license to operate on Mondays); and for Tuesday and Wednesday an extra hour for music and dance till Midnight.(Currently they can serve alcohol till Midnight).
Given the ongoing issues with this club and the problems it is causing residents nearby, as Ward Councillors we plan to oppose this application, as at least residents currently have some respite on Sundays and Mondays. We will also ensure that local residents are fully aware of this application.
Full details can be accessed here.
Contact Roger Freeman if you need further information.
Given the ongoing issues with this club and the problems it is causing residents nearby, as Ward Councillors we plan to oppose this application, as at least residents currently have some respite on Sundays and Mondays. We will also ensure that local residents are fully aware of this application.
Full details can be accessed here.
Contact Roger Freeman if you need further information.
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
The 'mirf' where our recycling gets separated
Roger Freeman has been visiting Bywater's Materials Recovery Facility (a MRF or 'mirf' to those in the know) at Bromley by Bow.
This plant receives all of Camden's dry recyclables from business and households - in other words everything that goes into the green general recycling bin and the blue bag for paper. Note that Camden's black bag waste as well as cooked food and garden waste goes to another facility in Edmonton.
Bywaters have a most impressive operation whereby they separate the contents of the recycling box into plastics, glass, paper and metal and indeed further separates the plastics into PET Plastic (basically beverage bootles) and HDPE plastic (basically milk bottles) and other plastics.
The whole issue of recycling came up at last week's Swiss Cottage Area Forum. Note that the reason Camden asks you to separate the paper into the blue bag is that they can get a higher price for paper so separated. Examples were cited at the meeting whereby operatives were mixing the contents of the blue paper bags with the green general recycling box. This is a firm no no, and if anyone sees examples of this please contact Roger Freeman, citing the time and place where this is taking place.
This plant receives all of Camden's dry recyclables from business and households - in other words everything that goes into the green general recycling bin and the blue bag for paper. Note that Camden's black bag waste as well as cooked food and garden waste goes to another facility in Edmonton.
The whole issue of recycling came up at last week's Swiss Cottage Area Forum. Note that the reason Camden asks you to separate the paper into the blue bag is that they can get a higher price for paper so separated. Examples were cited at the meeting whereby operatives were mixing the contents of the blue paper bags with the green general recycling box. This is a firm no no, and if anyone sees examples of this please contact Roger Freeman, citing the time and place where this is taking place.
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