Peckham Rye Police Ward Panel Meeting

Last night I went to our Ward Panel Meeting with our local police team. These are meetings which allow residents of Peckham Rye to raise concerns and issues with local police teams and to influence their priorities. Last night’s meeting took place in a meeting room at Honor oak Baptist Church on the corner of Forest Hill Road and Therapia Road.

Last night’s meeting was particularly timely for me because I’d just been contacted by a local resident who was concerned about several muggings which had taken place between the south part of Nunhead and the route to Brockley train station. The area in question is outside the patch covered by our police team, but they did undertake to speak to their colleagues in the neighbouring ward, check the stats to see if there was a problem and said action would be taken to increase patrols if necessary.

I always find these meetings to be very congenial and constructive. Other items which were discussed included a person pestering people around a local cash-machine, the impact of the Olympics and the level of burglary in Peckham Rye. On the last point, the police told us that there had been a small increase in the number of burglaries taking place in recent months. They emphasised that the general level was still very low when compared to other parts of inner London, but that people should always take care to secure their property. One particularly common occurrence, they said, was opportunistic burglaries happening when people leave their windows open because of hot weather and then forget to close them when they go out.

The next ward panel meeting will take place on 5th September at 7pm. Anyone who lives locally can attend, so if you’re interested, come along.

How Peckham Rye Voted

Last week people across London voted for who they wanted to be their Mayor and representatives on the London Assembly. Obviously we're disappointed that Ken Livingstone couldn't quite pip Boris Johnson to be Mayor of London, but we're very pleased that Val Shawcross was re-elected as our Assembly Member. Val is an excellent and hard-working representative for our area and I'm sure she'll continue to campaign for us on issues like extending the 63 bus route to Honor Oak Park station.

One of the helpful things about the publication of the London election results is that you can get the ward breakdowns of how areas voted from the London Elects website. The results from Peckham Rye are fascinating (particularly if you're a bit of a geek and happen to be a Councillor). Each voter had the opportunity to vote on three ballot papers (one for Mayor on which you could put first and second preferences, one for the top up 'list' members of the GLA and one for your constituency member of the GLA).

The first thing to say about Peckham Rye is that turnout was slightly down on the last time people cast these votes in 2008. I haven't worked out the exact % figures for our ward, but in the first preferences for Mayor 300 less votes were cast than in 2008. However, it's worth pointing out that turnout was down across London and in 'Southwark-terms' , our local turnout was good.

Labour performed very strongly in Peckham Rye across all three ballot papers. In the vote for Mayor, the first preference vote the chart below shows that Ken Livingstone polled just short of 50%. Noticeably the Lib Dem (Brian Paddick) vote collapsed into 5th place and they were beaten by both the Greens and the Independent candidate. (You can click on the images to make them bigger).

On the GLA 'list' vote where people just had to choose their preference between different parties, Labour again polled just shy of the 50% mark. The chart below shows the change in this vote from the same election back in 2008. As you can see the Labour vote has surged (good news!) whilst the Lib Dems have dropped by almost 8% (more good news you might say!).

This trend is even more marked when it comes to the vote for who people in Peckham Rye wanted to represent them on the London Assembly. Val Shawcross (Labour candidate) secured 53% of the votes cast.

It's also interesting to see that the trends seen in Peckham Rye were repeated in neighbouring East Dulwich ward, which has had less Labour voters in recent elections and which has three Lib Dem Councillors. The reasons for this will be complex but my guess is that people are very angry about the hypocritical behaviour of the Lib Dems in government. Others are perhaps coming round to Ed Miliband as a future Prime Minister. Whatever the reasons for this voting pattern, it's good to see people putting their faith in the Labour Party. As local Councillors Victoria, Renata and I will continue to work hard to retain your confidence.

Ivy House Listing

Renata Hamvas (fellow Labour Councillor for Peckham Rye) has just called with some news. She's just posted this on local forums:

 "Thank you for the many many emails I've received about the Ivyhouse, you have been keeping me very busy over the last couple of days! Just to update on the situation: I have been liasing with English Heritage over the Ivyhouse and as of today, The Ivyhouse is a Grade II Listed building. The owners have been notified in writing of the change in status of the building.

 Renata"

Another Ivy House Update

Just a quick update. I've written to Harriet Harman (our local MP) to ask her to write to English Heritage and the Department of Culture Media and Sport regarding the Spot Listing of the property.

Renata has been in direct contact with English Heritage about the listed building application. It seems likely that the listed status application could come through relatively quickly. We'll update again when we have more news.

The Ivyhouse - UPDATE

We've had a flurry of emails and tweets today about the Ivyhouse Pub on Stuart Road closing this weekend. It seems that the current owners Enterprise Inns have sold the pub on to new owners and there are plenty of rumours that the building may be turned into flats rather than remaining as a pub.

As a private building, unfortunately we can't stop the current owners selling the building on to others who may have other plans for its use. However, the new owners would need apply for planning permission for change of use and likely for other alternations they might wish to make if they do plan to turn it into a residential property. As far as I can tell no planning application has been lodged and so no application has been granted. The planning process will allow for local residents to voice their concerns and to object to the application and in all likelihood the decision would then come to local councillors - but we do need to wait until we actually see what the new owners have planned. As I understand it, it was the planning process and the substantial number of community objections lodged that stopped the Duke of Hamilton in Hampstead development going ahead. I mention this as several locals have mentioned this to us today.

In terms of the building becoming a listed building it seems this had been mentioned in the Peckham and Nunhead Area Action plan and posts on the East Dulwich and South Central forums suggest that an application has already been lodged. I will try to clarify exactly what the status of any application is tomorrow. Anyone can contact English Heritage and request that a building is considered for listed status and I'm sure that along with Cllr Edwards and Cllr Hamvas we'd be willing to look into what this might involve. However if an application is already being processed it would be best if we tried to support this rather than starting afresh.

Community Wildlife Garden opens in Peckham Rye Park

Vikki and Gavin with fellow councillor Barrie Hargrove, Cabinet Member for Transport, Environment & Recycling

Today saw the opening of the Community Wildlife Garden in Peckham Rye Park - well done to the Friends of Peckham Rye Park for making this happen!

The 'old depot' site near to the Park toilets has long been out of use and out of access. In fact many locals will have walked passed and not known this little pocket of land within the Park existed as it is surrounded by mature trees. The site originally contained greenhouses for the Park that were dismantled in the 70s and it was then used as a depot until the late 80s.

Since 2005 the Friends have been working hard to bring the site back into use as a wildlife garden. With the help of Southwark Council Cleaner, Greener, Safer funding and then a Big Lottery Fund grant that we were delighted to support, the last two years have seen the site transformed. I visited the site just after we were elected councillors and going back today you can see it has changed completely. Rather than just a waste land there are now wheelchair friendly paths, meadow areas, beehives, a pond, raised beds adopted by community groups and an insect 'loggery'.

You'll be able to visit the garden during park opening hours and there will be monthly maintenance days for local residents to get involved with caring for the garden. To get involved contact the Friends on foprp@aol.com.

Peckham Rye Labour Councillor: Standing Up for the NHS

Vikki spoke at the TUC "Save Our NHS" Rally a couple of weeks ago and brought the house down.  Sadly, since then, the Health and Social Care Bill has passed through parliament with the support of Southwark Lib Dem MP Simon Hughes.