Greenwich to sell off housing stock?

Rumour has it that "Greenwich Council's Labour group have voted through a proposal to transfer all council homes to another owner with a 50% rent increase to 20% below the commercial market value. They have also scrapped right to buy and will issue all tenants with a new lease with no security..."

Can anyone confirm/refute/tell us more?

Community Consultation on Tidemill becoming an Academy

Whatever your views on the government's plans to encourage local community schools to opt out of local authority control by becoming privately run Academies, you might want to know this:

The new development in Giffin Street has cost almost £20m, some £11m of which has come from Lewisham council tax payers, the rest coming from the government (which includes Lewisham taxpayers). The school has been an integral part of the council's plans to rejuvenate community resources in the centre of Deptford and £10m of the overall cost has gone into the construction of the school, £2.5m of which has come from government. 

If the school becomes an Academy, the new building that has cost Lewisham council tax payers £7.5m, may well be handed over on a 125 year lease to a private trust for a peppercorn rent.

 
Background to consultation:

When we first heard a month ago that there was to be consultation with the community on Tidemill becoming an Academy, we went to the school's website to find out more. There was nothing about the school's intentions on the home page, but information was hidden away on a News & Events page. There we found an invitation to download some documents that would explain the pros and cons. But the links did not work.

Those links finally started working last week. We read that the Academy Consultation document, which explains how the new Academy would work, would be widely distributed within the local area, including The Albany, Deptford Project and Wavelengths Library. It was not. The document also stated there was an appendix at the end containing questions and answers provided by the government. This appendix did not exist. The document is directed at 'Parent & Carers' with no mention of the community. The last page of the document was intended as a feedback page that had to be printed out, filled in by hand, and handed in to the school office. School office hours were not given and the school does not have a postbox. There was no digital version available (eg a Word document that people could fill in and email back) although an email address was provided.

However, we are pleased to see the school has finally got its act together and the school website has now been updated.

Academy Consultation: Deadline 15th November

The home page now has a direct link to an Academy Consultation page, and you can download the various documents – the most important being the Parent & Carer Academy Consultation document referred to above (still no mention of the community). You can then fill in an online form on this page to give your comments and feedback. The deadline is November 15th.

There is also the option to download the form and fill it in by hand as before. You may also email, as before, the Chair of Governors to ask any questions you may have that you don't feel are answered in the Consultation document.

Meanwhile, the Saying No campaign has provided a short "They Say, We Say" document that expands on the wider implications of some of the Consultation document's claims. This may help inform your opinion or raise queries to put to the school governors (see bottom of this post). 

It should be noted that none of this consultation would have taken place without the efforts of the Saying No campaign (which is opposed to Academy status). Those campaigners have been threatened by the school with police action and the school has written to parents, reporting the campaign as threatening the safety of the school's children and as holding "aggressive meetings that resulted in verbal abuse", none of which is true.

The school's own consultation meeting with its parents was poorly attended. Parents perhaps remain unaware of the true consequences of the choice presented to them. Many parents do not have English as a first language and, if the poor translations provided on the document requesting those parents to contact the school office are anything to go by, they will remain uninformed. No translations of the document are offered on the school's Consultation page. However, Saying No has provided rough translations on their site.

Other opposition to the school's Academy status comes from Lewisham Councillors and the architects involved in the new building design.

Tidemill's Academy Consultation page
Academies.sayingno.org
Parent & Carer Academy Consultation document (download from this blog)
Academy Consultation 'They Say, We Say' (download from this blog)

If you feel strongly about this and want to write directly to the Chair of Governors to be sure your view is heard (and not lost in the online ether) you might want to copy your email to:  jeevan.vasagar@guardian.co.uk, john.hugill@slp.co.uk, CllrPaul.Maslin@lewisham.gov.uk, cllrpaul.bell@lewisham.gov.uk, steve.bullock@lewisham.gov.uk, frankie.sulke@lewisham.gov.uk,
letters@guardian.co.uk




 

Crossfields Green Spaces meeting: 8th November, 6.30pm at Pink Palace

We posted on 23rd October that the next meeting of Crossfields Green Spaces would be on December 8th. We were incorrectly informed. It is in fact this coming Monday.

Claire Pritchard from Greenwich Co-operative Development Group will be there to talk through how to get the group set up properly. Also attending will be a Lewisham Homes rep who will be helping with the implementation of the Window Box Project – the result of a successful grant bid to help us make the most of our window boxes. There is also a call for volunteers to help in the clearing and regenerating of the Sue Godfrey Memorial Garden that is happening on December 15th.

All green fingered residents are welcome! For more information go to crossfieldsgreenspaces.wordpress.com.

Paddy Power +2, Deptford -2...

Looks like the relentless rise of Paddy Power's gambling empire has now ensnarled the John Evelyn.  The late John Evelyn. 

Putting the clock back in Deptford.(2)

That was a bit naughty of me yesterday - though I put in a link to the map, I didn't put in a link to the notebook from which I had transcribed a couple of extracts.  So let's put that right.

The next stage in Charles Booth's journey brings him closer to Crossfields Estate but might be a little confusing because he goes walking up streets that no longer exist.  Here's a map to give you some bearings - the online quality is not great but you can make out Addey Street (which Booth occasionally calls Addis Street) running parallel to Church Street with a further unnamed street running to the east.  Much of Addey Street appears to have been retained as the estate road running from behind Wilshaw House north to the railway.  The unnamed street was Hosier Street and where the entrance to the north side of Holden house now stands, there was Leonidas Street. 

Booth walks from the Broadway towards Creekside and Reginald Road noting:

N up Church Street (to Reginald Rd). Poor class of shops near the Broadway, 3 storied and old fashioned private houses, a few let in tenements but most look comfortable. Poorer as you go north. Pink as map. Portion of colour on east side gone – houses taken for mineral water factory. Lease for sale.

Though the south end of the Broadway has been rebuilt, there are once again a handful of very small shops at the Broadway end, and the mineral water factory must have been situated more or less where the car parking area behind Lewisham College now lies.  I do hope that they didn't get their water from the nearby Creek.

On into Creek Street (now Creekside)

East along Creek Street. With exception of two, the houses on south side are gone. Taken for business premises. On north side 2 st. houses. People look comfortable, work on the creek. Pink rather than purple of maps. Portion of street going north is poorer. East side nearly all gone. West side 2 storied houses. Purple (as map) to LB. Prefer latter.

Now the south side of Creekside only has one house left but the houses-into-businesses progression seems familiar as industrial use replaced housing. This continues north along Creekside/Creek St where there is housing on the west side (now Wilshaw and Holden Houses) but no housing on the east (Faircharm)

By the S side of railway is a passage eastward leading to the railway bridge across the Creek. Known as the ''Halfpenny Hatch.'' Toll of 1d charged for crossing.

Inflation clearly is not a recent phenomenon - already it costs twice as much as its name suggests.

W into Leonidas Street. 2 st. 4 rooms, flush with pavement. Paint good, clean and well kept. Decent people mostly one family in a house. Purple rather than LB of map. Colour omitted on south side, Light Blue. S down Hosier Street. 3 rm'd cottages, poor labouring class. Some broken windows. Part of SE end of street taken for factory. LB as map. Colour to come off west side south of entry into Addis Street. Ground plan of street wrong at south end. Street runs into Creek Street near Addis Street. Several houses between Hosier Street and turn in Creek Street.
 The recurrent references to colour reflect the colour coding Booth used to show levels of affluence.  Leonidas Street is roughly where the estate entrance opposite the Creekside Centre is.  Hosier Street has left no trace of itself though.  Its old route would take you through Holden and Wilshaw and and back out onto Creekside.

N along Addey Street. Small 2 St houses like Hosier St. south of the passage into Hosier Street. LB in character. Between the entry into Hosier Street and Leonidas Street is a row of old houses on E. side. 4 rooms and attic in roof. Footway leading to houses is about 2 ft below level of roadway and is protected by iron railing. Some prostitutes and criminals. Low rough class: reckons this the worst part of Deptford. Went into a house here to arrest a man at 5am. Found father, mother and 5 children in one room. All rooms are small. This piece should be D.Blue lined. Houses opposite are 2 st. D.Blue in character. Northern part is 2st and Light Blue except 3 shops and publichouse north of Leonidas Street. 





His route so far would seem to be along the lines of this:

As they walk back north up Addey Street the inspector remarks that he ''reckons this the worst part of Deptford.'' which Booth marks out here.

Addey Street, the buried heart of Crossfields is not a place of luxury.  ''Some prostitutes and criminals. Low rough class: reckons this the worst part of Deptford. Went into a house here to arrest a man at 5am. Found father, mother and 5 children in one room. All rooms are small''

So, prostitutes, 7-to-a-room overcrowding and criminals - the low rough class.  I think we may have become slightly more gentrified since Booth's day.

(Next section to include the hawkers and slatternly women standing about on the ''Poor Patch east of High Street/Giffen Street)