Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Estate Walkabout Thursday 25 March + TRA Meeting


Lewisham Homes will be conducting an estate walkabout at 6.30pm to review security issues on the estate (meet at Cremer/Castell entrance).
See previous posting on this here.

TRA Meeting: 7.30pm Thursday 25 March 2010 
at The Pink Palace, 50 Frankham House

On the Agenda:
  • ASB
  • Estate Security
  • Environmental Health
  • Leasehold Issues
  • AOB 
All welcome...if you've got any particular issues to raise but are unable to attend, please post a comment below.

11 comments:

  1. Blimey that picture of the pink palace looks a bit like a Hansel & Grettel wicked wood backdrop or is it my computer screen?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Seriously though, why isn't this website on the agenda as a subject. Can anyone go on that walkabout? I thought we voted ages ago against CCTV. Is that what their going to do? I can't be there so I hope they don't think we want it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm not sure if I remember this clearly, mushroom, but when the residents were consulted on CCTV, wasn't it part of a series of proposals, including security doors and lifts? Maybe not, but there wasn't a Ha'penny Hatch back then. And I think that there are security issues on there, beyond the broken lights. There have been muggings there - I actually witnessed one at the Creekside end in daylight where a decoy gun was used. Police to muggee: ''How do you know it wasn't a real gun?'' Muggee: ''Because he pulled the trigger...''

    ReplyDelete
  4. Could be that repairing the lights on Ha'penny Hatch might improve both the percieved and actual safety of folks walking over the bridge? My view is that CCTV is of very limited benefit to anyone except the CCTV industry and politicians of all flavours who see it as a cut-price policing measure. If CCTV worked as advertised, the UK would now have almost no street crime and offenders would be swiftly identified and prosecuted, given the amount of public CCTV we now have. That hasn't happened though, has it?

    ReplyDelete
  5. I always cycle quickly through there at night, and do my best to avoid having to walk through on my own in the dark. Improving the lighting would help, but the main problem is that there is not a clear view to the other end, and you can't solve that either by lights or CCTV.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I got involved in this one, but without a brief. I dragged Lewisham homes people through deep puddles (but felt a little guilty about dragging the already damp policeman there - it's not his fault, after all).I even managed to get them as far as the bridge on the Ha'penny Hatch. No further though. They didn't know whose turf they were on....

    Personally, if I were cycling through there I'd go via the street entrance onto Crossfields (opposite the lovely gates) and find Church Street from there rather than follow the path alongside the arches. Speed may be an asset, but where there are non-working lights and a series of hidey-hole arches, I'd prefer to negotiate the speed bumps on the road. Still, we might manage to find out who's responsible for the dead lights along there.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks Marmoset for guiding the strangers through the dark areas...
    Despite the fact that this walkabout arose as a result of action by our local Councillor after a Crossfields resident was mugged in February outside her block, it has mainly highlighted the problems posed by an unlit and poorly maintained Ha'Penny Hatch.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Marmoset, what did the Lewihomes people say? What did the coppers say?
    I always thought I was pretty safe around here, did they say how often bad things happen? Surely it can't be that often. Was the girl that got mugged there? I mean I know you never see a warden but isn't there a reason for that? Like nothing that bad happens very often? Did they think there we need CCTV? Did they say anything about who did the mugging? did the ASB people have anything to do with it? Who else was there apart from coppers?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Mushroom, I came along to this at late notice, not actually knowing the details of the person who got mugged, and not knowing who had set up the walkabout, so I was pretty much winging it. All I could do was lead the 3 people who turned up through what I thought were the main areas of concern. The people there were Lisa from Lewisham Homes, Phil from M&E (mechanical and engineering)at either Lewisham Homes or the Council, and a police officer called Nick, from the New Cross Safer Neighbourhoods Team. We identified a number of non-working lights, particularly along the south side of the railway line, looked at the narrow arch between Congers and Finch, the pathway alongside the basketball court and I even managed to get them as far as the bridge on the Ha'penny Hatch, where there were a good number of broken lights.

    We discussed CCTV but saw that there would have to be a great number of cameras to cover all the possible danger spots and the cost for these would be very high, with a limited effectiveness. Phil thought that lighting around the estate was generally pretty much above statutory minimum levels, but he agreed to find out who was responsible for the lighting on the hatch - was it Greenwich, Lewisham or Network Rail? He seemed to be under the impression that Lewisham's responsibiity ended at the beginning of the hatch by Creekside. I asked him to send this information to Sue Lawes.

    A major concern was the number of open arches and, while it would be a Network Rail affair, would offer far fewer hidey-holes if many of them were closed off - obviously 2 arches (Creekside road and pavement/cycle path) would have to remain open and perhaps another 2 arches by the path between Browne and Farrer.

    Nick, the police officer, was new to this area so didn't have much local knowledge to offer. He did pass me a card with the Safer Neighbourhoods Team's details, and I'll put the contact details onto the Useful Information page.

    The whole thing would have been much more effective if the people who'd set up the walkabout had actually turned up. As it was, we were all pretty much in the....er...dark.

    ReplyDelete
  10. They can't CLOSE OFF the arches! That would be terrible. Just light them better!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Well, Mushroom, the Phil the M&E man (mechanical and electrical) took down the numbers of the existing lights that weren't working. We'll wait for them to get entered on the computer, given a chitty, and a man with a ladder and a bulb to get allocated the repair work.

    While the open arches might give a better sense of it being a single estate, they do provide hidey-holes. However, I don't know of any cases of them being used for ambushes.

    (One comment from the walkabout: ''imagine putting the railway line right through an estate'' Err, the railway was there long before the estate. Putting a dual carriageway road through the estate was a different matter.)

    ReplyDelete