Scaffolding

Scaffolding has been up for a while now (over four weeks front and back of 1-20 Wilshaw and a bit less outside Castell) but no one knows what it's for. During all this time one workman has been spotted with one roof ridge tile.

He was asked if he'd been detailed with clearing the gutters while he was up there – maybe pull out the tree that's growing up on Wilshaw, but alas no. A zoom lens reveals it may be a bird's nest, so probably best to leave, eh.

Saturday on and around Creekside

Open Studios and new gallery show Invaluable at APT 12-6pm, Private View 6-8pm
Hand Made Food Pop Up Cafe and Licensed Bar in the yard.
Studios also open on Sunday 3 July, 12-7pm. Invaluable runs Thu-Sun 12-5pm till 31 July.
More info www.aptstudios.org/   6 Creekside

Core Gallery is showing A Theory of Everything, with an artists talk at 1pm. More info coregallery.co.uk/current-exhibition C101 Faircharm, 8-12 Creekside

Arthub Open Studios and show 12-5pm, 5-9 Creekside

Summer Festival at Twinkle Park, Borthwick Street 1-6pm
Jazz, African drums, pond dipping, cream teas and Pimms and more, plus Petanque Tournament (boules) in Charlotte Turner Gardens. Part of Greenwich Council's ParksFest 2011 (Check www.parksfest.org to see when other parks in Greenwich are participating).

Greenwich Festival continues – Les Girafes starts at 9pm in General Gordon Square, Woolwich.
(NB. There might be delays on the 180 bus)

Support your caretakers

Two weeks ago, Chief Executive of Lewisham Homes, Andrew Potter, left the comfort of his office for the wild north of Lewisham to join his managers on a walkabout of Crossfields to look at some unresolved issues that leaseholders and the TRA Repairs Rep have been complaining about for some time.

Apparently there will be some action points to come from this walkabout, but the only thing that seems to have happened so far, as is often the case with poor management, is pressure being brought to bear on the people lowest down to work harder to make those in charge look better.

Now one of our much loved caretakers wants to resign – he says he feels like he is chasing his tail to keep up with an ever-expanding job description, with little support or listening from above. The job is not made any easier by thoughtless and careless residents littering and making a mess, or by the council binmen leaving debris behind, and the council's sweepers appear to have such a job load that they never spend long enough here to make a difference.

Some residents are now writing to Lewisham Homes to show their appreciation of the caretakers, and in particular for Dev who looks after the south of the estate. They are under the impression that complaints have been made about the caretakers by other residents.

But there have been no complaints made to Lewisham Homes about the caretakers. There is, however, an ongoing complaint about the procedure the caretakers must follow for cleaning our stairs: washing rough surfaced stairs with a mop and one bucket of water (now increased to two), leaving behind bits of mop that have to be swept up the next day. And the caretakers' and TRA Rep's requests for a programme of deep cleaning repeatedly falls on deaf ears.

At the last estate inspection in March, the new inspector was visibly aghast at the very apparent neglect, much of which is attributable to the lack of sweeping and grounds maintenance – both council contracts, and nothing to do with the caretakers. She was astonished at the state of the stairs and could see it wasn't a problem to do with caretaking, but none of this appears in her report since the inspection is not designed to record long-term neglect. (Find Estate Inspection reports here).

Unfortunately, caretaking inspections are the only monitoring Lewisham Homes does – external repairs and work done by outside contractors are never checked. Management seem mainly concerned with cobwebs and balcony obstructions. We say thank God for cobwebs – it means there are some spiders to catch the flies that swarm in the stairwells, which is not the result of poor caretaking, but because there is still no contract in place to regularly deep clean the bins.

London 2012 - What's in it for you?

Radio London are broadcasting live from the Maritime Museum, Greenwich, on Friday 15th July, 9am–12noon.

Vanessa Feltz will be joined by a panel of experts and commentators and a representative from LOCOG to ask the question: London 2012 - what's in it for you?

The Beeb are inviting Londoners to be part of the live audience who will have the opportunity to raise issues and ask questions. If you want to take part, email vanessa@bbc.co.uk, put Olympic Debate in the subject heading and give your contact details and address.

Concrete jungle

I'm told it was after there was an estate walkabout on June 6th with a certain Chief Executive that this happened:

I'm also told there was nothing discussed in the walkabout that had anything to do with the forlorn little boxed in areas where trees have been chopped down that suggested they might in the following few days be filled in with concrete by probably one of the most inept concrete filler-inners that ever worked for Lewisham (Homes)...

Some residents were very upset by this, especially the gardeners, who had been planning some guerilla planting, having waited in vain for the useless Glendales to do anything – planting not being Glendales' strong point. But with the loving care of residents we may have had some sweet little beds, possibly growing the sort of stuff that looks after itself and can survive the kids and weather. I'd be happy with some long grass rather than this merangue of sand and cement. Truly awful.

No one asked for this shoddy work, no one wants it. This is what happens to it after a year:

We'll probably have to live with the above since cars drive over it, but the little squares that were once tree beds should be got rid of as soon as possible. And nobody should pay for it being put there or being removed.