Community Event this Sunday on Crossfields

Leila Galloway and Sophie Hope would like to say a special thanks go to all the residents who have contributed to the sayingno CD which has now been delivered to all homes on Crossfields Estate – your voices are truly inspirational!

"We hope you enjoy listening to this unique snapshot of a time and place and are as moved as we were when we were editing the voices together. We really think this is a vital and exciting document that brings the individual voices of a community together in an intimate and celebratory way. Thank you for sharing your stories of freedom, celebration, rebellion and sayingno with us and your neighbours."

Contributors to the CD include Adam, Alpha, Anana Krish + Suzie Rendell, Andy Forshaw + Ade, Anna + Ruth Hudson, Anton, Ben, Bunmi, Charles Hayward, Chi Nwobani, Chika + Grace, Chris Morgan, Claire Evans, Clement + Mecalla, Debbie Hughes, Dee, Duncan Grech, Eddie Reid, Elaine, Elise, Farhia, Fiona, Guillaume Crato, Heather, Heather M., Hedley Shaw, Ingvilid Isakden, James, Talbu + Richy, Jan, Javier, John Rhodes, Kieth Nicholson, Lucy, Maeve, Anne-Claire, Sylvia + Stella, Mark, Mark, Mei Ying, Mervion Kirwood, Michelle Hopwood, Miss Kante + Jaunet Remy, Murphy Adewale, Naomi, Nick Statham, Pat, Paulie, Piotr Ruszel, Rachel + Ken, Rafael, Raoul Amantchi, Ray, Riita, Rory Laird, Shaun Barweti, Shaz, Steve, Stuart, Sue Powell, Suresh, Sylvia van Mierlo, Syvia Ferreria, Rachel Eliott + Gemma Convelly, Tayo, Terry, Terry Edward, Tim Wilson + Mike, Tim’s friend, Tom, Tracy, William Ottie, Winston, Yazmine and all those who wished to remain anonymous.

Thanks also to the Tenants and Residents Association (Hugh Johnson in particular), Sue Lawes, Nicholas Alexander, Jake Strickland, Olivia Hornby, Treasa O’Brian, Simone and the staff of Deptford X.

Hear Crossfields Estate's 'confessions of freedom and rebellion' on the saying no website here.

Tidemill - the mayor's initial response

Lewisham mayor, Steve Bullock, has written to Councillor Paul Maslin with his response to proposal to change Tidemill into an academy.  Here is the text of his letter as forwarded on 23 September 2010 and published here www.academies.sayingno.org. 

Statement on Tidemill School
The performance of this school in recent years has been outstanding and the leadership given by Mark Elms has been of the highest order.  Lewisham Council has worked closely with the school to support it in achieving and consolidating that improvement.
The school has played an important role in its community and the way it has attempted to work not only with students but their parents too has been deeply impressive.  In part because of the schools success in working with the community it has been an integral part of plans to radically improve public provision in that part of the borough.  A new development is taking place which will include within it a new public library and community space that will be shared by the school and the community.
If the legal status of the school is changed and the ownership of that shared space brought into question this project may be at risk.  The Council will need to take legal advice on the implications of the school becoming an academy for such an large project involving public funding.
A number of academy schools already exist in Lewisham and they have played a critical role in enabling some under performing secondary schools to achieve significant improvement.  We work closely with these schools which are very clearly part of the Education Family in Lewisham where co-operation and mutual support have enabled us to improve faster than the majority of London boroughs.
At first sight I do not see any similar advantages arising from individual primary schools which are already successful opting for academy status.  The overriding objective that we have pursued relentlessly for the past 8 years has been to improve the life chances of our young people and no approach has been ruled and no partners excluded from our thinking as we strive to achieve that.
My approach to this remains pragmatic and if further academies will help move us forward I would be prepared to support them.  The onus must be on any school seeking academy status to demonstrate that they will be helping move that whole project forward not seeking advantage for an individual school at the expense of others.

That sentence - ''At first sight I do not see any similar advantages arising from individual primary schools which are already successful opting for academy status.''  fully echoes my own marmosettian view.  More importantly, it may be reassuring for parents uncertain about what the future holds  for Tidemill.

The future is fragmented

Thanks to Deptford Dame for digging up an almost secret consultation process about the Future of Deptford Town Centre this weekend.  How comes nobody seemed to know about the upcoming consultation on the proposed developments for Douglas Way?  Who has been told about the meetings in the Albany Theatre tomorrow (Wednesday, 29 September, 4 - 7pm) and on Saturday (2 October, 10am - 12 noon)?

So as yesterday was a bit of a ''walk around making a nuisance of myself day'' I popped into the regeneration office in Unit 1, Resolution Way, to see what I could find out.  The initial conversation started off a little like this:


''I wanted to see what I could find out about the consultation that's coming up at the Albany.''
''We've already done it on Friday and Saturday''

Perplexed, this turned out to mean that not only was there an Albany-based consultation that nobody seemed to know about but that there had also been another Unit 1 consultation that nobody seemed to have known about as well.  How did that work out?

It appears that the office was talking about this consultation....

This particular consultation was specifically targeting the tenants who would need rehousing if the architects' plans got the go ahead.  I can't remember the exact order, but there would be a chain of rehousing which works out something like this;  build new flats on the Tidemill nature garden site, rehouse the residents of the block on the north side of Reginald Road, demolish this block and rebuild on that site, move residents in one block on Giffen Street into there, demolish that block and rebuild, and so on.  Until just about everybody has moved one block along.

The residents of Frankham House, which is on the same block of land, were not consulted on this.  It appears that the progressive rebuilding and rehousing of a local community does not concern them because they're not part of the rehousing chain.  These old Crossfields flats were built to last it seems.

So, regardless of the rights and wrongs about very targeted consultations that leave neighbours wondering about what's going on in the blocks next door, this fragmented approach to letting us have our say is how they're working.

More concerning, however, was that, while the man I spoke to, Gavin, was exceptionally helpful and communicative, he didn't actually know anything about the Albany consultation that Deptford Dame flagged up on Sunday.  I actually had to get him to type lewisham.gov.uk/deptfordtowncentre and steer him away from vainly looking at Lewisham's list of active consultations (where I've yet to track it down - while the link claims ''This site lists all consultation events being run by the Council'' there clearly is no trace of any of these consultations) before he knew what I was talking about.  So, absurd as it seems,  I've walked in off the street, asked about a consultation, and I'm actually telling him how to get to where a different wing of his own department is carrying out its consultations.

''Ah, it's the Douglas Way consultation!''

How are we supposed to find out what is going on when the Regeneration office doesn't know what its other hand if doing?  It seemed pointless to ask what kind of publicity, leafleting, etc is being carried out because Gavin would have had no way of answering.

It strikes me that there's something dysfunctional about all this.  Modern information technology allows people work in isolation - because information is easily circulated.  But this can only be effective if the information genuinely gets circulated.  Otherwise the whole thing becomes fragmented and uncoordinated, both within the council's offices and between the public and the council.

EDIT: I would like to re-emphasise that in no way do I want to criticise the person I spoke to.   Gavin's helpfulness was exemplary.  It's not the person, it's the structure that I'm unhappy with.  The simple fact that these consultations are not listed on the council's consultation page demonstrates that the system isn't functioning properly.

Pirates (the sequel)

I'm only posting these up from sheer bloody mindedness.  I'm walking through a tourist spot in Greenwich and security people tell me to stop taking photos.  And whenever that happens I have no choice but to take more photos and post them up somewhere.

So, here's the barricade they've put up overnight.

Here's the cavalry - a lovely horse anyway....

 Here's some Hacktors...

And here's the mildly-interesting photo they didn't want me to take.  As this photo was not authorised - sight apparently has been privatised - logically this must be a pirated image. 

-0-

It's sometimes simply more fun to be in Deptford, a short walk and a world away

It would be interesting to compare their relative budgets.

Act like a Greenwich pirate day

I was asked a couple of days ago whether I knew what the animal stables were doing in the Royal Naval College.  No idea but I wandered over there this afternoon to have a look.  There's an enormous amount of activity going on over there.  There are around 60 horses being stabled in there at the moment.  Walking further on, I came across some rather impressive props - this clearly was no low budget production.  For example, that wall in the photo below wasn't there last time I visited. 

Neither was this wall...

Nor this one...

And the bunting didn't ring any bells either.





The security man I spoke to didn't want to say what film they were filming.  ''Not allowed to say.''  ''Well, Blackbeard Productions is a bit of a giveaway, isn't it?''  I replied.

It turns out that tomorrow (Mon 27 September) there will be around 600 extras and 60 horses with carriages milling around the place.  And just 8 days after Talk Like a Pirate Day, there will also be a lot of people celebrating Act Like a Pirate Day.  And it looks like you might be in for an unpleasant ride if you fail to get into the spirit of the occasion.

 EDIT: Deptford Dame has just pointed out that the Greenwich Phantom has done a couple of posts about this.  There's background and photos of the set construction at earlier stages here and here