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Tag: lewisham

Webcast of LBL full council meeting

A webcast of the important LBL full council meeting on 1 March is now available :

[ilink url=”http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/NewsAndEvents/News/CouncilMeeting1March2011.htm”]Link to webcast[/ilink]

Sydenham Assembly meeting to be held on Thursday 13 January Naborhood Centre 7pm

The Assembly meting postponed from earlier this month is now to be held on Thursday 13 January. PLEASE NOTE THAT THE NEW VENUE IS THE NABORHOOD CENTRE

The Sydenham Assembly is an opportunity to make your voice heard and find out what is going on in the area. Topics to be discussed include the ‘Our Lewisham, Our Say’ consultation; the Wells Park youth centre and Sydenham Library (the decision on closure has been deferred by the Mayor for two months to allow community groups to develop an alternative solution).

 

The following four projects will be bidding for a share of the £25,000 Mayor’s Fund: 

Project 1 – Sydenham Arts Festival £10,000

This project addresses the assembly priorities of a vibrant high street and more activities for children and young people. 

Description – The third annual Sydenham Arts Festival will run from 1 July to 17 July and is currently being planned. In 2011 we intend to provide live performances in the High Street including theatrical performances and exhibitions in “pop-up” shops, a Family Picnic in the (Home) Park with live entertainment and children’s activities working with Friends of Home Park, an open-air Free Film Show in Mayow Park, a Visual Arts Trail and performance workshops.  We are currently in discussions with the Sydenham and Forest Hill Youth Forum, local musicians and performers and many other event organisers about approximately fifty other arts events taking place during the Festival.

The Sydenham Arts Festival is already established as a major community event and we want to build on this to improve community cohesion and a sense of place. This year we are planning to encourage young people to take part in activities and to put on performances organised by them during the Festival period.  This will not only involve activities and performances during the Festival but will involve planning these events in the months leading up to the Festival. 

Project 2 – Sydenham Community Radio £5,000 

This project addresses the assembly priorities of a vibrant high street and more activities for children and young people. 

Description – The intergenerational project involves teaching young people between the ages of 14 and 18 how to use recording equipment, as well as teaching interviewing skills. Young people will then be taught how to edit pre-recorded material and how to produce and present live programmes.

Older people will be interviewed on a number of subjects, with a emphasis on how different generations can learn from each other, and programmes will be developed for both online transmission and for on air broadcasts during the summer one month FM license period in 2011. 

The project aims to promote social cohesion by enabling young and older people to talk and work with each other. Facilitating a community dialogue is central to this project in that both groups will be given a voice through access to a new platform. 

Project 3 – Sydenham Film Club £4,500 

This project addresses the assembly priorities of a vibrant high street and more activities for children and young people. 

Description – This project will deliver on an active inclusive community which is part of the priority for a vibrant high street.  It is hoped to work with young people through the Sydenham and Forest Hill Youth Forum. 

The project will involve residents of the local community as films attract a diverse audience.  It is hoped to build up numbers attending the film club by starting with a regular monthly film show.  Existing networks will be used to promote the film club and attract more volunteers as well as researching what types of film residents would want to see screened eg promoting the film club through the Sydenham Society and Sydenham Arts Festival.  

Project 4 – Switch It £4,000 

This project addresses the assembly priorities of a tackling ant-social behaviour and more activities for children and young people. 

Description – Run by FA trained coach, Jeremy Zulu, and supported by other volunteers in the community, the project delivers the positive activity of football, enhancing health and fitness. It also provides coaching to develop skills, and it provides the environment to discuss issues relevant to young people, encouraging them to receive mentoring, make positive life choices, to turn away from crime and anti-social behaviour and to stay in education and succeed in life. 

Up to 50 young people a week will attend, engaging in healthy physical activities, enhancing skills, and discussing issues and learning skills for living well. 

The coaches and mentors enable young people to discuss issues of concern to them, and where necessary receive help with anger management. They are encouraged to do well at sport, avoid exclusion from school, and to aspire to becoming coaches themselves in the future 

 For more information, go to: www.lewisham.gov.uk/localassemblies/sydenhamassembly

Well Educated? How does Lewisham West match up?

A study by the Office of National Statistics shows the number of degree holders and those without any qualifications broken down by parliamentary constituency. The results highlight a startling educational divide throughout the UK from one locality to the next.

So how well-educated is Lewisham West compared with other areas of London? Very badly is the short answer!

The table below shows education qualifications in Lewisham West followed by a comparison with some other London constituencies – and we’re at the bottom of the graduates league!

But don’t despair. Lots of degrees don’t necessarily mean a more prosperous or more agreeable neighbourhood. For example, all of Devon, Cornwall and Somerset as well as Chichester and Eastbourne score lower on graduate qualifications than Lewisham West.

Constituency % with no qualifications % with at least degree/ NVQ4
Lewisham West 9.68 28.86
Lewisham East 11.87 39.02
Dulwich & W Norwood 7.17 56.40
Greenwich & Woolwich 11.23 46.84
Richmond Park 4.45 63.61
Kensington and Chelsea 5.3 62.25
Battersea 8.01 58.61
Tooting 4.87 58.3
Lewisham Deptford 6.97 49.43
Croydon North 12.27 34.7
Croydon South 12.52 30.41
Streatham 12.55 42.27
Camberwell & Peckham 13.86 39.47
Vauxhall 17.08 42.27
Southwark 16.34 39.87
Poplar & Canning Town 25.03 29.45
Hackney S & Shoreditch 16.17 41.98

 

For the full data visit

www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/oct/19/educated-degree-qualification-constituency-data

D-Day for Lewisham council cuts

Lewisham is facing cuts from its budget amounting to between £50-60m over the next three financial years. At the Mayor and Cabinet meeting on the 17 November the Mayor and Cabinet is expected to approve the first tranche of these cuts – £19.78m over three years plus a further £12.7m savings where consultation with staff and public are currently taking place.

 

A decision on closing five Lewisham libraries has been postponed for two months pending further investigations on “alternative community library proposals” and the cost of moving to these alternatives (see http://www.mayorsteve.co.uk/ ).

Here are some of the cuts expected to be approved at the meeting:

  •  Severely cutting the borough’s economic development unit with the loss of 22 jobs, meaning that there will be no community business support and no town centre managers
  • Reducing the number of flower beds in parks – a saving of £30,000
  • The financial control department to reduce cost and staff saving £943,000
  • Corporate communication department’s budget to be cut by £97,000 (£64,000 of this to be saved by cutting Lewisham Life from 10 issues per year to six)
  • Reduce park investment by £396,000 which will mean fewer Green Parks, hanging baskets and street planting
  • Head of strategy department to be cut – savings £70,000; loss of three posts
  • No more spraying of weeds on streets and pavements saving £50,000
  • Saving £170,000 by reducing the amount of printing and photocopying by borough
  • IT savings of £1.3m by sharing services with Bromley council; IT data services to save a further £200,000
  • Mayor’s Fund (giving grants to local wards) cut by 25%; Local Assembly grants budget cut by £45,000 and admin costs for LA cut by £31,000
  • Close Clyde Children’s Centre (Deptford) and reduce budgets of Early Years Centres in Rushey Green, Honor Oak and Ladywell to save £2.1m
  • Reduce Lewisham’s contribution to Arts and Brodway Theatre by £43,000; One Lewisham Funs for Arts support also reduced by £25,000
  • Cut Lewisham’s contribution to borough’s Police Support Team by £125,000 (currently £250,000) resulting in “changes to PCSO deployment” . Note – this was postponed by M&C on the night
  • £450,000 cut in “Valuing People Agenda” (due to personal care packages scheme for elderly and disabled currently being proposed by central government); some savings could be gained by closing existing day care centres
  • A £22.84 charge to households for replacing lost, damaged or stolen wheely bins. Note – this was postponed by M&C on the night
  • £63,000 cut in waste advisors who encourage recycling
  • A reduction in the strategy and performance division saving £278,000
  • Amalgamating the community safety service and the community wardens service to create three area based neighbourhood safety teams and reduce staffing – saving £811,000

For full details of proposed cuts see:

 http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/6473F8B1-EE6C-44AA-A754-40A634EC4A6A/0/fedacedddad140aca772135c7b7b7ffbItem8Appendix217November2010.PDF

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Lewisham Council cuts – 446 staff to go

Lewisham Council has written to Town Hall unions warning them that 446 staff jobs are to disappear in the next three years as cuts start to bite.

Management jobs will be at the forefront of cut backs.

The agenda of the  Mayor and Cabinet  meeting on November 17 carries a report which warns that 195 jobs – 43% of the total –  will go from the Resources Directorate which deals with finance, corporate policy, the executive office, procurement, personnel management, legal services, strategy and IT. The report warns that  “the Authority is currently considering Phase 1 revenue budget savings proposals of some £19.8m for 2011/14, of which £13.7m relates to 2011/12. …… Should all the Phase 1 proposals be agreed, it is likely that this will result in up to 195 posts being deleted. This will inevitably result in substantial redundancy costs which will need to be financed corporately and via the use of directorate resources. “