Sydenham Assembly - 7pm Thursday 13 January

[Chris Best]

Hopefully everyone living in Sydenham Ward received the leaflet this week inviting them to the next Assembly meeting on Thursday evening - 7pm at the Naborhood Centre, next to the Post Office in Sydenham Road.

There will be feedback on Our Lewisham Our Say and an update on the budget following decisions taken by the Council on the 29 November. The Council had been planning to have to reduce its budget by £60million over the next three years but following the recent announcement on our financial settlement, it now seems we will be forced to find a massive £87million over the coming four years. Next year alone we are facing a reduction of £33million. We had been expecting to reduce our budget by around £20million next year – now we know we have to increase that amount by a further £13million. We will continue to prioritise services for vulnerable adults and children and young people. We will, inevitably, have to shrink the size and scope of the Council and seriously consider what services we continue to provide and how we provide them.

There will then be presentations on the bids for the Mayor's Fund for this year - from Sydenham Arts Festival, Sydenham Community Radio, Sydenham Film Club and Switch It! - please come along to hear more and vote on the projects. Joyce is looking for volunteers to help run a new film club for Sydenham.

Tim will lead the discussion on Future Sydenham and hear your views on how we can encourage high street shopping following the road improvements.

Finally, there is an open session for information, questions and answers including the latest on Sydenham Library. It would be great to see and I will ensure that we finish promptly at 9pm.

Chris
http://www.chrisbest.org

[Tim Lund]

Tim will lead the discussion on Future Sydenham and hear your views on how we can encourage high street shopping following the road improvements.

For some explanation, here is how I mean to introduce this section:

http://lund.co.uk/?p=112

[shopgirl]

Hi Tim
I just read the post on your website from the link above.
Just to say, if you would like somewhere to meet in terms of 'somewhere or someone to go to who could act as a clearing house of ideas and information' , you are welcome to talk to us at Alhambra, and use our tearoom for meetings, subject to availability. There's room for a maximum of nine people - more in the summer when the garden is open!
I hope the meeting goes well tonight. Sorry I can't make it this time, but am looking forward to hearing about it all.
Becca

[Robin Orton]

I hoped to go to this, but in the event I was incapacitated by the after effects of an unusually extravagant lunch. I hope someone will post a brief report. Any blood spilled?

[admin]

I will do a full report later but here are the highlights:

1) Barry M did a good job of ferreting out a delay of 12 months in the redevelopment of Sydenham Road buried deep in the meeting notes. That makes it sometime in 2012. Sydenham Station Approach is delayed 9 months to September this year. The reason offered was the inability to come to an agreement with the rail operators over SSA hence a delay to the whole contract.

2) All the bids for money were successful:
- Sydenham Arts Festival
- Sydenham Community Radio
- Sydenham Film Club
- Switch It: Youth football training

3) Sydenham Library. Darren was invited to present his takeover package. There was some heat from those fighting the closure but it ended in friendly fashion.

Admin

[bencooke]

Did I read that right? No regeneration of Sydenham High Street until 2012?

[admin]

Did I read that right? No regeneration of Sydenham High Street until 2012?

Not quite.

It will not start BEFORE 2012. Barry reminds us that this will be 8 years after Lewisham took over the project. It has already slipped. This was blamed on having to complete the gas/water works first. Now it is concluding an agreement with the railway companies on Sydenham Station Approach. There is no guarantee on when this will be agreed and the contracts signed. Then there is the construction time.

Hence completion end 2012 might be regarded as an optimistic projection. Or am I being pessimistic?

More here: http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/...

Admin

[Robin Orton]

Was anything said about the new youth and community centre in Wells Park Road, about which various people have raised concerns on this forum?

[leenewham]

Hi Robin,

yes, it was said raised that there had been few objections to the proposals. If it's well run, of the kids/young people who attend have something constructive to do then I see it as being a really positive thing for the whole of Sydenham.

I thought the assembly overall was positive.

Barry as already said gave a great talk initially about yet another delay to the road improvements. As a representative for the council behind the project that started over 8 years ago, I felt sorry for Cllr Best as I'm sure she wants them to go ahead asap, but you have to ask 'why does it take longer to fix pavements railings and a roundabout than it took to defeat Nazi Germany'. Surely something is wrong in the council if schemes like this or the 'Lewisham 2000' project (which still hasn't happened yet) are taking an age to happen? Or perhaps the whole system needs to change because it appears (to me) to be broken.

Anthony from the SSL and FOHP give a great, heartfelt talk about the library and the fact that the council had basically ignored the proposals put forward from the Save Sydenham Library Campaign which I believe, quite frankly, is just plain nuts and without reason. Darren who used to run Eco Computers talked about a proposal he is putting together to take over the running of the library if the council are forced/unable/unwilling to carry on running it.

There was a bit about the mosaic and an unveiling of two round sections (no idea how these will fit on the building, how much more funding is needed, how long it take before we see it finished and no further comment from me!).

Tim Lund talked about Future Sydenham, a local initiative that I a long with others are involve with to help bring ideas for the improvement of Sydenham to life. This involves things like the late night shopping organized before Christmas, supporting ideas like the Farmers Market, What If Sydenham and collating and publishing data which may help things like pop up shops and bringing, supporting and enabling new businesses to open in the area.

Annabel talked about the competition for the Greyhound wall which is being exhibited in the Kirkdale Bookshop. There are 18 designs in total. Hopefully I will get a few pictures this weekend and post them on the forum and the What If Sydenham blog.

For me, the really positive part were the pitches. All got well over 50% (infact I don't think any got less than 85% and there were over 100 people there).

I'm sure I've missed some other bits out so if anyone wants to correct me or fill in the gaps please do!

[sean]

Video from the meeting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLQRBMX-nNk

[Tim Lund]

Probably a more interesting video here - what Darren was talking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aixcGY6f2yM
(Sorry for cross posting)