Perry Vale Energy Savers Launch Sep 13 7 - 9pm

[Tim Lund]

September 13, 2011 from 7pm to 9pm

From Love Perry Vale, organised by Cllr Susan Wise

Perry Vale residents have been awarded funding from the GLA to improve energy efficiency in their homes. Participating households will receive a visit from a professional energy advisor who will asess which energy and water saving devices residents can benefit from, install them and offer practical advice on how to reduce energy use, The scheme is open to everyone in Perry Vale, is completely free with no obligation on the resident's part.
I am taking part in the scheme, and am launching the event on the night. Please attend and learn how to save energy and reduce your energy bills!

Not easy to find a good on line map of the ward, for anyone who's not sure if they live in it, but this might help


I think these professional energy advisors will be the Green Champions whose recruiting Melissa flagged up here. I think I've actually seen the stuff they have to give away - loads of boiler insulation and reflective panels to go behind radiators, and more, I'd guess.

I have to say, I'm curious as to why this is happening this way. In the first place, why has someone in the GLA fixed upon Perry Vale Ward? Are we just part of some randomised trial, or are we known to be particularly poor about saving energy, or has some survey of housing stock indicated that there are a significant number of properties likely to benefit from the scheme?

I'm also interested in how it is being publicised. Focusing as it does on a ward, I'd have expected the Perry Vale Local Assembly to be involved, but as one of the co-ordinating group, I've only heard about it by accident. I also think it bizarre that local councillors, almost uniquely, persist in posting information to Love Perry Vale, when it is clearly so much less active a Forum than this or SE23.com.

Finally, I'm interested in how this project will be evaluated. I'm sure there will be some nice feel good photo-ops of people saying how much money they're looking forward to saving thanks to the scheme, but are there any targets before hand for what they are expected to achieve? Are there any commercial organisations already in the business of selling and fitting such devises who could have been involved as partners in its delivery, whose businesses could thereby have been given a real boost, and Green champions, on £8 an hour, make connections with employers who, if they prove themselves good at what they do, might offer them more work later, if not a permanent job?

[Tim Lund]

Well, having done a bit of googling, I find this, which has links to a commercial outfit that Lewisham is working with on this.

[JohnPaschoud]

...I'm also interested in how it is being publicised. Focusing as it does on a ward, I'd have expected the Perry Vale Local Assembly to be involved, but as one of the co-ordinating group, I've only heard about it by accident. I also think it bizarre that local councillors, almost uniquely, persist in posting information to Love Perry Vale, when it is clearly so much less active a Forum than this or SE23.com.

I'm sure Sydenham councillors will identify with, and post on, Sydenham Town Forum if and when they think it might be useful to enough of the people they represent. If the moderators of Sydenham Town Forum (which undoubtedly has at least some users living in Perry Vale ward, quite apart from me and the other two Perry Vale ward councillors) would like to consider a change of name to reflect the intended coverage of their forum, I'd be happy to discuss with them what might be appropriate.

LovePerryVale is intentionally restricted in membership to people with real-world identities connected with (mostly, living in) Perry Vale ward. STF members who live or work in Perry Vale are very welcome to join LPV too (I don't think they'll get thrown out of STF for disloyalty ), but will need to accept that some of the terms of discussion, such as anonymity, are different there.

I understand that something called FacePage (or something like that) is, bizarrely, even more active an online forum than STF. But I still think it's sensible to discuss an initiative that is only available to residents of Perry Vale ward, in an online forum dedicated to residents of Perry Vale ward.

[Tim Lund]

John - that hardly answers the point, which is that it makes most sense to start promoting something on a site with the largest number of the promotion's target audience viewing it. The fact that Love Perry Vale is dedicated to the ward doesn't mean that more people in the ward are looking at it than are looking at either this Forum or SE23.com. Do you claim otherwise?

Another unanswered question is why the infrastructure built up by the Local Assemblies programme was not used in this case.

[Tim Lund]

Thanks for posting the notice Tim, however please be clear that it is for only Perry Vale residents to prevent any misunderstanding over who is eligible.
To answer some of the questions posted by, I think yourself, in the blog post, as a Perry Vale ward councillor I am keen to promote the loveperryvale site as it ia about Perry Vale. Sydenham Town Forum is for Sydenham and se23,com presumes that the SE23 postcode covers only Forest Hill and Honor Oak wards, so doesn't highlight any Perry Vale information, whereas we in Perry Vale know most of our ward is in SE23.
The Energy Saver scheme is run by Lewisham Council and Groundwork's Green Doctors. As Lewisham's lead member on the environment, I am very pleased that our ward has been chosen for this scheme, a decision I had no part in, and as a resident I had my energy assessment on Tuesday. As a participant of the scheme, I can now share my experience with other residents and promote it in the full knowledge of how well it works. As to evalutaiton and assessment, that

source LovePerryVale, but you have to register to see it.

Well, I think posting a map showing the boundaries of Perry Vale ward made the importance of living in the ward fairly clear. I can understand why, other things being equal, you'd want to promote a site for your ward, but other things are not equal - take an honest hard look at site traffic. The fact that a Forum has a particular place in its name hardly stops people outside from using it - my parents used to read the Manchester Guardian even though they grew up in Leicester and Dagenham, and never actually lived there.

If SE23.com doesn't give enough coverage to events in Perry Vale ward, the obvious solution it to post material there which does cover it. It'll be less time consuming that Cllr Paschoud having to maintain LovePerryVale, cost less, and mean its admin is exposed to legal risk for innappropriate material that gets through.

[Rachael]

At the risk of diverting this thread even further from the OP, can I just say that as a resident of Perry Vale, I didn't know about the LovePerryVale site until I saw it mentioned here (it appears I miss much of what happens outside my door, which may be my own fault). I had a look at the site but was slightly mystified as to why it is a social networking site rather than an organisation website with a discussion forum attached, which seems to me the more usual model for these things. I haven't joined because I don't want to become a member of a closed organisation. I like the idea of having a source of hyper-local information, but I don't want to have to become a 'member' to access it. I understand the need to control contributions - every forum required registration before you can post. But was is the advantage of not even being able to read the content without registering?

[michael]

se23.com presumes that the SE23 postcode covers only Forest Hill and Honor Oak wards, so doesn't highlight any Perry Vale information, whereas we in Perry Vale know most of our ward is in SE23.

I can't seem to respond on the Perry Vale forum (even though I am a member, having lived in Perry Vale fairly recently), so I'll respond here.
SE23.com covers all of SE23 and makes no distinction between different wards within the SE23 postcode. There are plenty of regular posters from Perry Vale on SE23.com (probably more than the total members of LovePerryVale).
SE23.com should not be seen as a competitor to LovePerryVale, in fact LovePerryVale even has feeds from both SE23.com and Sydenham Forum.

It does seem that more could possibly have been done to publicise the event. I don't think I have heard anything via the Forest Hill Society which probably has most of it's members in Perry Vale ward. Well done to Tim for spreading the word.

[Tim Lund]

Hopefully the Lewisham officer who's leading on this will be able to come on here - and SE23.com - and explain more. I've had an email from her, and just been on the phone to her. There is a good coherent message to get out, and I wouldn't want to garble it, or quote verbatim from a private email, even one sent on business. But don't forget the bottom line - if you live in Perry Vale ward, see if you can use this opportunity, and tell your neighbours about it too!

[michael]

I've posted it on SE23.com and Forest Hill Society website as I think many viewers of both will be interested in this event.

[Tim Lund]

Or download flyer as pdf here

[Tim Lund]

Just a quick bump. I'm not going to be able to get to this thanks to a meeting to do with allotments in Bromley ...